Revolution and the Millennium: China, Mexico, and Iran

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Author: James F. Rinehart

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Revolution and the Millennium

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Revolution and the

Millennium China, Mexico, and Iran James F. Rinehart

RRAEGER

Westport, Connecticut London

library of Congress Cataloging-ln-Publlcatlon Data Rinehart, James F., 1950Revolution and the millennium : China, Mexico, and Iran / James F. Rinehart. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-275-95931-7 (alk. paper) 1. Millennialism—Political aspects—China. 2. Revolutions— China. 3- Millennialism—Political aspects—Mexico. 4. Revolutions—Mexico. 5. Millennialism—Political aspects—Iran. 6. Revolutions—Iran. I. Title. BL503-2.R56 1997 303.6'4-dc21 97-4228 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 1997 by James F. Rinehart Allrightsreserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-4228 ISBN: 0-275-95931-7 First published in 1997 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z3948-1984). P In order to keep this title in print and available to the academic community, this edition was produced using digital reprint technology in a relatively short print run. This would not have been attainable using traditional methods. Although the cover has been changed from its original appearance, the text remains the same and all materials and methods used still conform to the highest book-making standards.

To the memory of my mother and father


Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction

ix 1

1. Apocalyptic Prophecy to Millenarian Revolution

17

2. Imperialism and Upheaval: China, Mexico, and Iran

41

3. The Preparatory Function

63

4. A Platform for Leadership

117

5. The Therapeutic Function

151

Conclusion

173

Bibliography

179

Index

191


Acknowledgments

fascination with millenarianism and political violence began long before M Iyconsidered writing this book. Both subjects have been, and remain, sources of profound interest and curiosity to me. In some small way it is my goal that this text will assist in furthering our understanding of the relationship between these profound sociopolitical phenomena. I owe many thanks to a number of people who have contributed to the creation and preparation of this volume. Louis Kriesberg and John Nagle assisted me in the very early stages of my research and writing. Their comments and suggestions were both significant and invaluable. Susan Borker and Mehrzad Boroujerdi also read an earlier version of the manuscript and offered helpful suggestions that I have incorporated in the final text. I am especially indebted to Michael Barkun. Without his encouragement, suggestions, patience, and valued counsel this book would not exist. It was a privilege and a pleasure to study with him at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University. In addition, it is an honor to call him a friend. Much thanks goes to my loving wife, Betty, and our children, Erica and Andrew. Their sacrifices during the years while I researched and wrote the book were immense. I will be forever grateful. Finally, I want to thank my mother and father, Eleanor Louise Lane Rinehart and Kenneth Perry Rinehart for all of their contributions. Although neither one lived to read the manuscript, they were never far from my thoughts during its writing. It is to their memory that I dedicate this work.




Introduction

he idea of the end of the world offers humankind a tantalizing, yet confusing, Tappeal. On the one hand, such a notion provides us with a certain amount of definition and precision to the otherwise ambiguous and sporadic nature of the human experience. The cosmological nature that surrounds the notion of a final reckoning between good and evil—between the moral perfection of God triumphing over the anti-God, the embodiment of all that is evil in the world—is perhaps the most compelling of all human conceptions. It offers final solutions to seemingly unanswerable questions about the meaning of life. And generates a profound sense of renewal and inspiration that humans are generally incapable of otherwise sensing in the temporal world. On the other hand, the anticipated achievement of this final epoch of paradise and absolute freedom leaves us profoundly bewildered, restless, and overwhelmed. There are simply too many unanswered questions. Will there truly be an end time? If so, when will it happen? What will be its nature? What will follow? And perhaps most important, what role will humans perform in such an event? What should be done to prepare the way for the final days? Will humans be actively involved in events or merely innocent bystanders? Such questions sustain our anxiety about our present condition and, at the same time, energize our imaginations about the possibility of a better, or perhaps even perfect, existence following the end time. This is a study of how humankind has attempted to answer some of these questions. It is a study of the relationship between millenarianism and revolution. As such, it will consider the connection between two distinctly different social phenomena, both of which represent what one could consider the extreme within their respective ideological categories. On the one hand, revolution embodies the

2


extreme state of sociopolitical behavior, in the sense that through such a process humankind explicitly seeks to thoroughly and radically transform the institutions and values of society.1 On the other hand, if we define ideology as a doctrine regarding the right and wrong ways in which social power and authority can be used and in what direction society should be headed, then millenarianism must be understood to be ideology in its most extreme form.2 It may be described as an ideology of perfectionism grounded in the belief that divinely-inspired power is capable of bringing about a form of heaven on earth. Nonetheless, revolutionary groups and millenarian-inspired sects are compatible extremists. Indeed, they generally share some common characteristics. For example, both revolutionists and millenarians emerge in the presence of pervasive social disorientation—when conditions within the community are abnormal and unsettled, and the polity as a whole is in a state of "disequilibrium."3 Such disorientation may be either perceived or real—it really doesn't matter to the revolutionist or the millenarian. To them, perception is reality. During harsh and difficult social circumstances, both revolutionists and millenarians anticipate massive social change. They come to believe that society cannot continue on under such pressures. Indeed, both revolutionists and millenarians seem to recognize, long before most other people, that society may be in some form of danger; that the end of what now exists may be near. Not only is a complete overturning of existing conditions possible, it is imminent, they are convinced. The ultimate goal of the revolutionist and the millenarian is social rescue and salvation. Nevertheless, both believe that this salvation must be preceded by the complete elimination of what has been before and are convinced that a new era, age, or epoch in history is about to begin—one that will be free of the pain, suffering, and indignation of the previous stage. Finally, the journey of both the revolutionist and the millenarian is expected to end in social harmony, regularity, dignity, and tranquility. Both possess an unshakable belief in the inevitability of their activities, and the sacred nature of their mission provides a lofty and definitive significance to those who participate. Perhaps not surprisingly, the presence of millenarian doctrine has been asserted to be an important component in the process of revolutionary change in both the East and the West.4 It has been argued that millenarian doctrines "lie at the heart of all revolutions, at least for that inner circle of zealots whom Crane Brinton calls 'the extremists.' "5 MILLENARIANISM: AN ANCIENT AND MODERN NOTION The first meaning of millenarianism, and the context most often associated with the phenomenon, was a limited, religious-inspired one. The Christian world has always anticipated the end time, and its teachings reflect this expectation. Originally, millenarianism referred specifically to the belief held by some Christians (who literally interpreted the Book of Revelation) that after his Second Coming,

Introduction

3

Jesus Christ will create a messianic kingdom on earth and will reign over it, with the help of a select or "chosen" people, for a thousand years preceding the Final Judgment.6 Most human beings, not just Christians, confront the idea of the end of the world at some time or another—connected, in large part perhaps, to the human necessity for coming to grips with one's individual mortality. How each of us comes to rationalize some vague philosophy, whether it be religious or secular in scope, regarding the likelihood and character of the end time—how will it happen? what will take place? when will it occur? what will follow, if anything?—represents our own possible personal brush with millenarianism. It is a powerful concept that is culturally grounded in superstitions, myths, and even magic.7 Nonetheless, it represents the most important manifestation of the uniquely human quality of hope. In recent years the term has been substantially broadened by some social scientists who have attempted to understand millenarianism outside of its religious foundations. Armed with an expanding body of research about non-Christian movements that nonetheless exhibit the characteristics of millenarianism,8 researchers have come to view the phenomenon in increasingly secular terms—as a collective social response to massive upheaval and disorientation such as that engendered by natural disasters or the disorientation resulting from the clash of highly dissimilar cultures.9 As a result, millenarianism is now perceived of in a more liberal sense. In the context of this study, millenarian movements are powerfully emotional social movements whose members anticipate a unique type of social salvationism—an immediate, collective, total, this worldly, supernatural rescue, and subsequent transformation of society.10 Millenarians expect the complete destruction of the existing social, political, and economic order. And they are convinced that such an all-encompassing calamity and social disaster will be immediately followed by a new and perfect society. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to assume that the millenarian's belief in the inevitability of a perfect world is the exclusive influence on his or her actions. While such a belief dominates millenarians' day-to-day perspective and performs an important function in how they interpret events in the world, it is not the only factor impinging on their lives. Indeed, millenarian expectations never exist in a psychological or social vacuum. They always coincide with and blend into concurrent social influences and inspirations.11 It is this amalgam that, perhaps, contributes to the wide variations in form, scope, and actions of millenarian-inspired groups. Millenarian beliefs, and their adherents, in varying degrees and forms, are present in all true revolutionary upheavals,12 and little scholarship has been devoted to the functional role they tend to perform in such conflicts. It is this void that this study will attempt to fill. Using a comparative analysis of historical events in China, Mexico, and Iran, I will explore the functional role of millenarianism in the stages and process of revolution. I will argue that pervasive millenarian expectations were an important component of all three revolutions. I will identify and expand upon the functions

4


performed by millenarianism in these conflicts and will seek to answer the question: What specific roles and functions does millenarianism discharge as a society accelerates toward and ultimately becomes embroiled in revolution? At first blush it would appear that the twentieth-century revolutions occurring in China, Mexico, and Iran would be unlikely candidates for a comparative study of revolutionary conflicts. After ail, China, existing for centuries in a largely self-imposed insular position in relation to the West and only recently thrust into world affairs through the obtrusive process of European imperialism, would not seem to possess any sort of commonality with the unique, Islamic-dominated culture of Iran, or the ethnic and class conflicts that characterized Porfirista Mexico. However, it is no mere coincidence that revolutions erupted in these three countries early in the twentieth century. These revolutionary conflicts (Iran in 1905, Mexico in 1910, and China in 1911) became episodic upheavals that, particularly in China and Iran, manifested in later revolutionary violence (1927-28 and 1945-49 in China and 1978-79 in Iran), achieved varying degrees of sociopolitical and economic transformation in all three societies, and have affected international events throughout the twentieth century. In reality, these three seemingly diverse states shared many remarkable features that offer us the opportunity for a meaningful comparative study of revolution. The specific, historical focus of this study will be on a comparison of the processes surrounding: (1) the emergence of Chinese Communism, its ascendance to power, and its revolutionary transformation of Chinese society; (2) the Indian component of the Mexican Revolution; and (3) the Iranian Revolution of 1978-79, which resulted in the establishment of the Islamic Republic. Nonetheless, it is important to understand that these specific events did not occur in a vacuum. The revolution that came about in each of these societies may trace its origin to factors that existed prior to the twentieth century and did not end with the cessation of violence. First, the peoples of China, Mexico, and Iran have traditionally been imbued with a powerful sense of historical destiny. Each of these societies had once risen to great power and then declined—the powerful Chinese dynasties, the Aztecs and Mayans of Mesoamerica, and the Persian empire—yet each held on to a firmly settled, unbroken, preindustrial societal framework.13 Second, the intrusion of Western imperialism, as it had in other societies, introduced new socioeconomic and political ideas into China, Mexico, and Iran, ideas that challenged and in many ways threatened their social and cultural systems. Constitutionalism, Christianity, capitalism, and later the Western concept of human rights all represent important examples of Western imported ideas that engendered both intellectual and social stress in all three societies. All three countries, by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, were experiencing socioeconomic and profound cultural intervention by the Western industrial powers. At the same time, their national political regimes pursued public policies that enlarged and enhanced their political and economic rule over "traditionally de-centralized" populations. Also, at the same time, these regimes sought

Introduction

5

to promote and foster their relationship with the Western great powers in an effort to achieve economic development.14 Yet in all three cases, this development was pursued solely for the benefit of a foreign entrepreneur-host government partnership, and not for the peoples of the nation as a whole. This foreign intervention combined with local government complicity provoked antagonism among the large peasant classes and an emerging labor class that, in all three cases, consisted primarily of former peasants. Discontent among these groups emerged as the result of three primary factors: (1) reduced sociopolitical autonomy, (2) economic dislocation, and (3) the perceived violation and corruption of ancient and sacred social values, mores, and customs threatened by Westernization. Third, China, Mexico, and Iran had each suffered defeat in a disastrous nineteenth-century war with a Western power (the Opium War between China and Britain, the Mexican War with the United States, and a series of wars between Iran and Russia, and Iran and Great Britain). These conflicts left the peoples of these countries both humiliated and bitter. Each country lost important territory to their adversaries. However, perhaps more significant, many Chinese, Mexicans, and Iranians came to perceive of themselves as subjugated by the superior forces of Western imperialism, forces that were casting an increasing influence on their economy and culture. Following their defeat by the British in 1842, for example, the Chinese people were forced (through the provisions of the Treaty of Nanking) to: (1) make burdensome reparations to the British treasury; (2) allow the British, and eventually other Western powers, to establish enclaves in certain major coastal Chinese cities as treaty ports; (3) permit British commercial interests to market opium and other goods in China—a move that exacerbated declining moral values by increasing the incidence of drug addiction and, in addition, significantly weakened the peasant handicraft production system; and (4) permit Western Christian missionaries to proselytize their faith and seek converts in China.15 Such concessions h$d harmful moral and economic effects on Chinese society and significantly contributed to both urban and rural discontent. Fourth, China, Mexico, and Iran were each ruled by powerful, well-entrenched, repressive, autocratic regimes that had become rigidly bureaucratic and corrupt after many years of political control. These regimes dominated all aspects of society, effectively eliminated public opposition, and drove dissident political movements underground. The power of these existing regimes was often identified by a large portion of the national population to be the result of their close association with Western governments. Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Iranian Shah, as well as Porfirio Diaz, the Mexican dictator, were both seriously compromised by their close ties with the United States, for example. Indeed, the power of the Shah became almost absolute following a government coup in August 1953, aided by the United States Central Intelligence Agency and British Intelligence.16 In addition, "American military and economic presence" as well as the occurrence of a "large European work force" were important catalysts for "mass mobilization" during the Iranian Revolution in

6


the 1970s.17 The Manchus, who had ruled China for three centuries, were foreigners themselves and, though thoroughly Sinified in their customs, were viewed by many Chinese as alien.18 This foreign domination was deeply resented by a majority of the population in all three societies. A fifth factor—and the focus of this study—was the presence of a lengthy and durable history of pervasive, religiously inspired millenarian beliefs in each of these societies. These beliefs had frequently manifested themselves, since the ancient period, as radical protest movements bent on rebellion, which tended to emerge following episodes of extreme social stress or conditions that had a catastrophic effect on some or all segments of society. An important aspect of this study is not only to identify significant similarities in these three cases, but equally so, to identify important variations and their bearing on the origins and process of revolution. For example, the cultures of these societies were significantly diverse. The religious origins of millenarian beliefs, though similar in concept, emerged from different types of sources. Additionally, the role of the specific movements under analysis—the Maoists, the Zapatistas, and the supporters of Khomeini—varied significantly in their impact upon these upheavals. The Maoists, for example, were central to the Chinese Revolution, yet the Zapatistas, as we shall see, were only a secondary component in the Mexican case. Finally, the consequences of revolution in all three societies varied dramatically. The primary methodology to be employed in this study will be a cross-cultural and cross-historical comparison of three non-Western revolutionary societies that were profoundly impinged upon by European and American imperialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Analytically, it attempts to identify and characterize the nature of the millenarian components of all three cases. There is a certain methodological difficulty in transferring sociopolitical concepts localized in time and place to whole societies in which revolutionary change is engendered. Problems arise when one attempts to transfer concepts that are more clear for small, localized movements to whole societies undergoing revolution, where a greater social complexity and competing concepts offer a differing analysis of what is going on. For example, the Chinese Communist revolutionary movement operated at three different levels to transform Chinese society: as an ideology, as a cult of Mao Tse-tung, and as a factional political organization—the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). To characterize it along only one of these dimensions creates the potential for both oversimplification and overgeneralization of its broader characteristics. In an effort to avoid such problems, I seek to identify the nature and composition of competing sociopolitical streams that existed in these societies during the stages and process of revolution. This study will not attempt to advance a general theory of millenarian revolution. Such an undertaking would require an effort well beyond the analysis of merely three cases. Rather, I seek to pursue a more limited investigation that uncovers

Introduction

7

common threads of millenarian-inspired social change as well as variations of revolution in these societies. It is inherent in such a study that it must transcend any single social science discipline. At its foundation, the study of millenarianism is the study of a society's hope for a better future. Millenarians believe that societal perfection, as the result of a divine deliverer at the end time or, as we shall see, the efforts of a chosen people, is possible. An understanding of the functional role that this belief performs in the process of revolution must include not only the facts of these revolutionary events as recorded by the historian, but also the constructs of the political scientist, the anthropologist, and the sociologist, who have studied these events from their individual scholarly perspectives. It is not my purpose, for example, to rewrite the history of these events. Rather, it is my goal to evaluate the available facts regarding these events in an attempt to uncover the millenarian stream that ran through these revolutionary societies. Such an analysis must rely on largely secondary historical sources. And this raises some additional methodological issues. Religion and politics, as we all know, are particularly volatile subjects, even among friends and relatives. Any discussion of these topics usually requires us to bring along our own doctrinal and dogmatic "baggage." And scholars in their search for the truth are not immune to such emotional traps. For example, most of the available firsthand accounts of traditional folk religions in China and Mexico were written by individuals who went to these regions specifically to bring about religious change: Western Christian missionaries. As a result it is often difficult to penetrate doctrinal and ethnocentric biases in an attempt to understand what truly went on or what these cultures were really all about. One of the primary goals of this study is to remain aware that the potential for this methodological problem is not only real but, indeed, very likely to occur. As a result, I pursue and evaluate as many sources and perspectives as possible regarding the critical events leading up to and surrounding the three revolutionary cases. It is important that we distinguish revolution from other forms of social change. Many social movements have sought to improve the circumstances within their societies through such diverse mechanisms as reform or violent rebellion. The difference between these forms of social change and true revolution is found largely in their consequences. Reform movements seek to institute social improvement without revolutionary change. Such movements attempt improvement through the abolition of abusive or defective social conditions. Rebellion, although it involves violence, also leaves the fundamental elements of government and society intact. Rebels bent on change and reform do not seek to alter the foundations of their society. Indeed, in many instances, rebel movements come to perceive of themselves as the protectors of traditional social values against those who seek to destroy them.19 In contrast, a revolutionary movement is a social movement committed to drastically altering or destroying existing institutions in a society. For example, the

8


Communist-led Chinese Revolution transformed China's economy by giving ownership of the country's basic industries to the state, taking it from private individuals. The notion of revolution used in this study involves a complete transformation of a society's fundamental values, its social and political institutions, its leadership, and its public policy.20 Indeed, following a true revolution, few remnants of the previous regime remain intact. It is precisely this transformative aspect of revolutions that makes them such a fascinating topic of study. Why is it that members of a society, who generally look upon any type of change as something to be avoided, are inclined at certain times to willingly, collectively, abruptly, and totally transform the structure of their social institutions—institutions that have often become well entrenched and have developed over long periods of time? THE STRUCTURAL THEORY OF REVOLUTION Since the late 1970s, scholarship about revolutionary conflict, seeking to explain the origins and nature of revolutions, has come to be dominated by structural theorists. Structural theory argues that revolutions are not solely the result of the subjective characteristics of a state—such as commonly held sociopolitical values or pervasive ideological belief systems—but rather, they emerge out of specific objective conditions involving the political, economic, or social structure of the state.21 Structural theorists hypothesize that revolutions are caused by weaknesses in the structural relationships of a society, for example, between political regimes and elites, peasants and landlords, or the state and international actors. Millenarian-inspired peasant rebellions are frequently characterized by structuralists as social agitations that are essentially primitive, archaic, and "pre-political" in form. Indeed, they are portrayed as anachronistic, backward-looking, and defensive in outlook. Rather than possessing a radical new vision of a desired new society, it is argued, they primarily seek only to recapture a perceived lost "Golden Age," which they idealize as superior to the present economic and social conditions surrounding them. Participants in such movements are represented as little more than social bandits who articulate sociopolitical goals that are ill defined, naive, vague, and irrational. Peasants, for example, who find themselves caught up in the throes of revolutionary change have been described as simply actors participating in events beyond their control, who are thrust into more important political and social processes occurring independently of them at the center of society.22 In addition, structuralists argue that a phenomenon as involved and complicated as revolution should not be studied merely from its domestic dimensions. Any analysis should include an evaluation of external events, including international institutional structures, that may impinge on the internal affairs of a society: If a structural perspective means a focus on relationships, this must include transnational relations among differently situated groups within given countries. Transnational relations have contributed to the emergence of all social-revolutionary crisis and have invariably

Introduction

9

helped to shape revolutionary struggles and outcomes. All modem social revolutions, in fact must be seen as closely related in their causes and accomplishments to the internationally uneven spread of capitalist economic development and nation-state formation on a world scale. Unfortunately, existing theories of revolution have not explicitly taken this perspective.23 Structural theorists assert that revolutions tend to occur in predominantly peasant-based, underdeveloped states that" find themselves face-to-face with Western imperialism. The inevitable confrontation between two fundamentally different cultural, economic, technological, and military systems in which one is dramatically more advanced than the other creates the potential for transforming change and, thus, revolution. From the structural perspective, the existing political regime in the underdeveloped state is simply incapable of coping with the pressures of such a confrontation. Local popular support shifts to a revolutionary movement that ultimately overwhelms prerevolutionary political structures. The structural perspective has broadened the scope of revolutionary conflict theory and has been an important contribution to its study. Nonetheless, the theory's almost total reliance on structural relationships as the source of revolution and a lack of adequate attention to other important factors, such as deeply held, pervasive values and ideological systems existing in a society, leaves the structural argument incomplete. In his analysis of the Mexican Revolution, for example, Walter Goldfrank identifies four structural conditions that he asserts are necessary and sufficient to account for the outbreak of revolution in 1910. In addition, he broadens his analysis by arguing that these structural conditions were not unique to the Mexican case, but are similar to those conditions accounting for other twentieth-century revolutions. Goldfrank's four structural conditions are: (1) "a tolerant and permissive world context," (2) "a severe political crisis paralyzing the administrative and coercive capacities of the state," (3) "widespread rural rebellion," and (4) "dissident elite political movements." The first three of these conditions interact, Goldfrank asserts, "to produce a revolutionary situation; the fourth, given the near-automatic existence of alternative contenders, emerges to effect political and social transformation after military superiority is proved."24 Similarly, Ervand Abrahamian asserts a structural explanation for the emergence of revolution in Iran. Largely pointing to modernization and rapidly changing economic circumstances, Abrahamian identifies three conditions that he believes brought down the Shah: (1) "a fiscal and political crisis brought on by the severe inflation of 1975-79," (2) "the opposition of elite groups alienated by the regime," and (3) "organized popular protests."25 Jack Goldstone expands upon Abrahamian's argument by asserting that this combination of factors is similar to those behind the English, French, Russian, Chinese, and Mexican revolutions.26 Certain aspects of Goldfrank's and Abrahamian's constructions offer some explanation for the onset of revolution in these sets of conflicts. It is true, for example, that a severe political crisis emerged in Mexico in 1910-1911 over the

10


legitimate successor to the elderly dictator, Porfirio Diaz; in China, when Chiang Kai-shek's KMT, severely weakened by a lengthy and destructive war with Japan, failed to achieve political control in the late 1940s; and, in Iran, when the legitimacy of the regime of the vacillating and terminally-ill Shah was increasingly drawn into question. It is also true that the Great Powers, which had often played a critical role in the internal affairs of both China and Mexico, found themselves, in the second decade of the twentieth century, preoccupied with conditions that eventually led to the outbreak of World War I in the late summer of 1914. Although the United States continued to intervene in Mexican affairs up to 1916, its role diminished after that 27 year. Nikki Keddie argues that in Iran, it was inevitable that some form of public defiance to the Shah's regime was going to occur in the mid-1970s. Nonetheless, both its "nature and timing were largely a result of the human rights policy announced by American President Jimmy Carter in 1977."28 Carter placed an important and (for an American chief executive) unprecedented emphasis on human rights in the world. His positions seemed to indicate that those countries allied with the United States that were violating the fundamental human rights of their citizens might be stripped of U.S. arms or financial aid. As a result, the Shah came to believe that Carter might push hard for human rights in Iran.29 Iranian dissidents drew a similar conclusion, one that fostered the "courage to circulate open letters and petitions" in the hope that they might not be as severely repressed as previous activities of that kind had been in the past.30 Carter's position on human rights, although it was not intended to do so, implied a crack in U.S. support of the Shah and, as a result, dramatically changed Iran's political climate.31 The Shah knew that without American aid his regime was doomed. His fears of the withdrawal of American support,32 along with Carter's emphasis on human rights protection for all, provided a new hope to Iranian dissidents that public protests of the Shah's government and its abusive policies would not be met with brutal SAVAK (the Iranian internal security service) repression.33 Consequently, one may argue that a tolerant and permissive world context did exist at the time of revolution in all three cases. In an important way, the structural argument is valid and provides a valuable analytical tool for the further study of revolutionary upheaval. For example, few would disagree with the notion that the disintegration of the central authority of the state, an important structural factor in our three cases, is a critical component in the onset of all revolutions. Yet, isn't such a disintegration symptomatic of much deeper causal conditions? Indeed, what is at the root of such weakness? In addition, what factors are likely to promote the mobilization and organization of revolutionary movements? To explain the onset of revolution in these three cases to be the result of such conditions as "widespread rural rebellion," "dissident elite political movements," "elite-group alienation," and "organized popular protests," is both tautological and incomplete. While it is clear that weaknesses in societal structural relationships may

Introduction

11

be effectively argued to account for the emergence of revolutions, attention should also be focused on the antecedents of the weaknesses themselves. Descriptions of rural rebellion and urban protests characterize the often violent nature and widespread discontent associated with revolutionary activities in these societies without explaining their origins; metaphorically, they describe the symptoms of more complex social maladies without identifying the disease itself. For example, what factors engendered widespread discontent and rebellion? Indeed, if such movements were merely rebellions, what factors or conditions transformed these upheavals into revolutions? The willingness of individuals and collective social movements to seek institutional transformation in a society through either nonviolent or violent means involves much more than weak societal structural relationships. The sociopolitical values and ideological belief systems adhered to by identifiable groups capable of mobilization—those most likely to make a revolution—often lie at the foundation of these upheavals and must be taken into account. As a result, it would appear that a more comprehensive and deeper examination of social conditions is required in order to understand the true nature of these revolutions. It is precisely such an examination that this study will attempt. The first chapter attempts to characterize the nature of revolutionary millenarianism through a brief survey of its evolution from the ancient to the modern world. In addition, I assert three necessary conditions for its emergence in a society. Chapter 2 is a comparative historical analysis of the impact of the forces of Western imperialism on twentiethcentury China, Mexico, and Iran. These forces, unleashed over a lengthy period of time, created conditions of extreme social stress in all three cases by significantly disrupting the fundamental components of their culture and economy. I will argue that such a disruption engendered disorientation and anomie34 in these societies and that revolutionary millenarianism emerged as a mechanism to revitalize and reconstruct new forms of social organization to cope with the manifestations of abrupt and substantial change. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 focus on the three functional roles I assert are performed by millenarianism in the stages and process of revolution: (1) a preparatory function, (2) a leadership function, and (3) a therapeutic function. These chapters are organized along thematic lines, although I have attempted to maintain the chronological order of comparative historical events. A durable and pervasive stream of millenarian beliefs existed throughout the traditional period in China, Mexico, and Iran. In all three societies, an ancient and persistent folklore about the end time was ever present. Like an underground river, it frequently bubbled to the surface during periods of dramatic and disruptive sociopolitical and economic change, periods when social structures were under severe strain.35 Over time this tradition has borrowed the symbols and language of different ideologies and organized religions, in all three societies. In China, for example, it has taken on the cloak of traditional folk religions, Taoism, heterodox Buddhism, Christianity, and, in the twentieth century, the Maoist variant of Marxism.

12


Despite such transmutations, however, the millenarian paradigm remained essentially intact: a terrible vision of the present world as an evil one ruled by demonic forces that have to be destroyed through a cleansing violence, so that a new age of perfection may be ushered in. In this sense millenarianism paved the way for revolutionary transformation in each of these societies. In the millenarian vision, the forces of justice and righteousness were led by divinely inspired leaders who derived their charismatic powers from the needs and chiliastic yearnings of the people. Millenarianism, thus, acted as a doctrinal platform awaiting the opportunity to elevate a prophet to revolutionary leadership. Finally, millenarianism provided the basis for social healing to take place in these societies. New identities were established in place of those that had been either lost or destroyed in the process of abrupt social change, and an important social catharsis occurred that purged these societies of iniquity and the burdens of humiliation, frustration, and indignation. The twentieth-century revolutions that emerged in these three cases owed more than has been generally acknowledged to their ability to draw these latent millenarian traditions to the surface and shape them in accordance with the exegeses of the moment. It is the goal of this study to shed a more significant light on this important and fascinating phenomenon. NOTES 1. The word revolution was originally used by Italians during the European Renaissance in the sixteenth century to describe the "revolving" triumphs of the popular and aristocratic political groups who were continually fighting for control of the Italian city-states. In this sense the term conveyed the idea of a displacement of political power and a restmcturing of government. Prompted by the Enlightenment faith in scientific progress in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, revolution came to be increasingly seen as a tool of sociopolitical progress that was capable of moving a society toward a higher level of social purpose. Indeed, Karl Marx argued that revolutions were both progressive and necessary to dismantle sociopolitical institutions that benefitted from an outmoded and unjust social structure. Cf. John Dunn, Modern Revolutions: An Introduction to the Analysis ofa Political Phenomenon, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989). 2. Ideology is a term that was brought into widespread usage in the early nineteenth century by the French philosopher Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy (1754-1836). He used it "in his systematic study of the Enlightenment" to identify the "science of ideas" that he believed had emerged during the period. Nonetheless, it was Karl Marx who, in the nineteenth century, laid the foundation for a different and more progressive notion of ideology. In the "Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" (1852)—although he rarely used the word ideology—Marx argued that ideas shape the ways in which individuals perceive the social world and their positions within it, thus profoundly influencing social and political change. Cf. Leon P. Baradat, Political Ideologies: Their Origins and Impact, 5th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994) and John B. Thompson, Ideology and Modern Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 3. Crane Brinton used the term disequilibrium to characterize a society in a period of profound institutional adjustment. **A society in perfect equilibrium might be defined as a

Introduction

13

society every member of which had at a given moment all that he could possibly desire and was in a state of absolute contentment." Nonetheless, "as new desires arise, or as old desires grow stronger in various groups, or as environmental conditions change, a relative disequilibrium may arise." "This conceptual scheme of the social equilibrium is probably in the long mn the most useful for the sociologist of revolutions." Crane Brinton, The Anatomy of Revolution, rev. ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1965), 15-16. 4. See Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970); Brinton, op. cit.; Jacob L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (New York: Praeger, 1960); Guenther Lewy, Religion and Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974); Said Amir Arjomand, "Millennial Beliefs, Hierocratic Authority, and Revolution in Shi'ite Iran," in The Political Dimensions of Religion, ed. idem (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 219-39; Michael Adas, Prophets ofRebellion (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979); and Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, (1936, reprint; New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1965). Mannheim asserts that millenarian expectations "have always accompanied revolutionary outbursts and given them their spirit" (192). 5. Michael Barkun, Disaster and the Millennium (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986), 184. The millenarian idea of "total, sudden, imminent, mundane transformation which will abruptly place man in an ideal society is not the property solely of religious thinkers. It is closely related to the secular tradition of Utopian speculation as well." See also David W. Plath, "Foreword," in Aware of Utopia, ed. Plath (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 197 ix-xvi. Brinton, in his classic comparative study of the English, American, French, and Russian revolutions, concludes that "our revolutionists are convinced that they are the elect, destined to carry out the will of God, nature, or science.... [TJhese revolutionary faiths are very interesting in their eschatologies, their notion of final ends like heaven and hell" (194). 6. Revelation 20: 4-6. 7. Batson and Vends assert that social influence can be a powerful factor in the religious experience of an individual. "Just how powerful this process can be was dramatically illustrated when hundreds of members of the People's Temple, after having given up homes and country to move to the jungles of Guyana, obeyed their leader Jim Jones's commands to commit suicide and even to murder their children and reluctant comrades." C. Daniel Batson and W. Larry Ventis, The Religious Experience: A Social-Psychological Approach (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 35. 8. Much research has centered on such non-Christian millenarian movements as the Cargo Cult phenomenon of Melanesia and the Ghost Dance Religion among various tribes of Plains Indians in the American West. See Peter Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound: A Study of "Cargo Cults" in Melanesia, 2nd ed. (New York: Schocken, 1968); I. C. Jarvie, The Revolution in Anthropology (Chicago: Regnery, 1969); Peter Farb, "Ghost Dance and the Cargo Cult," Horizon 11 (Spring 1969): 58-64; and Weston La Barre, The Ghost Dance: The Origins of Religion (Garden City: Doubleday, 1970). 9. See Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians 15, and Barkun, Disaster and the Millennium 34-61. Barkun terms the idea that millenarianism is frequently the result of the "clash of dissimilar cultures" as his "colonial hypothesis." See pp. 32-33 of the present text. 10. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 15-16. 11. Paul Boyer, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), xi. "If prophecy belief plays its private role for individuals, it has social ramifications as well. For it influences the worldview of

14


those who embrace it. Of course this 'influence' is neither absolute nor easily separable from the multiplicity of factors that shape popular views on public issues " 12. This is not to suggest that all revolutionaries or those who seek social justice and equality are always religious fundamentalists, equally inspired by visionary prophets. Such an argument could be interpreted to be a profound discrediting of any movement seeking positive social change and would be invalid. 13. For a similar analysis of the parallels between the Mexican, Iranian, and Chinese as well as the Russian revolutions, see John Mason Hart, Revolutionary Mexico: The Comi and Process of the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 230-34. 14. Ibid., 230. 15. John King Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution: 1800-1985 (New York: Harp & Row, 1987), 84-99. See also James DeFronzo, Revolutions and Revolutionary Moveme (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 66-67. 16. Nikki R. Keddie, Roots of Revolution: An Interpretive History of Modern Iran (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 138-40. Even before events began to emerge, many Iranians were already well aware of the involvement of the CIA and British Intelligence in the overthrow of Mussadiq's government. Nonetheless, "only gradually did details of these events become available in the Western world." Cf. Kermit Roosevelt, Countercoup: Th Struggle for the Control of Iran (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980). 17. Said Amir Arjomand, "Iran's Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective," Worl Politics 3% (19*5): 3%%. 18. Throughout its traditional history, China was frequently ruled by foreigners. In 1644, Manchu invaders from the north conquered China and established the Ch'ing (pure) dynast (1644-1911). At its midpoint in the 1770s, the Ch' ing dynasty, governing the Chinese empire from Beijing, completed the conquest of Mongolia, Central Asia, and Tibet. The most significant work on the Manchu conquest of China is Frederic Wakeman, Jr., The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 2 vols. 19. Max Gluckman, Politics, Law and Ritual in Tribal Society (1965, reprint, New York: Mentor, 1968), 169. 20. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 264. Revolutions must be distinguished from "insurrections, rebellions, revolts, coups, and wars of independence." "A coup d'etat in itself changes only leadership and perhaps policies; a rebellion or insurrection may change policies, leadership, and political institutions, but not social stmcture and values; a war of independence is a struggle of one community against rule by an alien community and does not necessarily involve changes in the social stmcture of either community." 21. Marx argued that "revolution is the driving force of history." People, he asserted, mistakenly thought of the enslaving mechanism of society as "a power alien to them" and "a pressure which they have conceived of as a dirty trick on the part of the so-called universal spirit, etc." In other words, as a subjective agent. In fact, Marx argues, this enslaving agent is a "power which has become more and more enormous and, in the last instance, turns out to be the world market," that is, an objective agent. The communist revolution would, nonetheless, ultimately come about because capitalism in the world would eventually reach the limits of its contradictions. Karl Marx, "The German Ideology: Part I," in The MarxEngels Reader, 2nd edition, ed. Robert Tbcker (New York: Norton, 1978), 163-64.

introduction

15

22. See Eric Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1969); Theda Skocpol, "France, Russia, China: A Structural Analysis of Social Revolutions," in Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies, ed. Jack A. Goldstone (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986); Eric J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms ofSocial Movement in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (New York: Praeger, 1963); Robert Redfield, Peasant Society and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965). 23. Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Historical Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 19. 24. Walter L. Goldfrank, 'The Mexican Revolution," in Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies, 106-7, 117. 25. Ervand Abrahamian, "Structural Causes of the Iranian Revolution," in Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies, 11926. Goldstone argues that "the shah was . . . brought down by a combination of factors similar to those behind the French, Russian, Chinese, and Mexican Revolutions: (1) a fiscal and political crisis (brought on by the severe inflation of 1975-79); (2) the opposition of elite groups alienated from the regime; and (3) organized popular protests" Goldstone, Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies, 27. Walter LaFeber, The American Age: U.S. Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 1994), 280-81. "In early 1917 [Woodrow] Wilson realized that he would have to enter the European struggle. He pulled out [General] Pershing's forces and began coming to terms with [President] Carranza." 28. Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 231-34; Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), 436-37. 29. Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 231-34. 30. Ibid., 233-34. 31. Carter, 435-41. Carter recounts a conversation with the Shah during a White House visit in 1977, in which the subject of humanrightsin Iran was briefly discussed. Nonetheless, this conversation was not an attempt to force a change in the Shah's policies. "I continued, as other Presidents had before me, to consider the Shah a strong ally" As conditions worsened in Iran in October-November 1978, "I sent him a message stating that whatever action he took, including setting up a military government, I would support him We did not want him to abdicate." 32. The Shah apparently was especially sensitive to any pressure from a new Democratic president of the United States because of experiences in the early 1960s during another perio of domestic turmoil, when he was coaxed by the Kennedy administration "to appoint a reformist prime minister and to implement land reform. It was an experience the Shah did not soon forget." He perceived of Carter's emphasis on humanrights"as a repeat performance of his experience with Kennedy." Shaul Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Ir and the Islamic Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1984), 1 33. Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 232. 34. The term anomie literally refers to being "without a name, to have no sense of social identity, or to be socially 'lost.' " The term is associated with the writings of the French sociologist, Emile Durkheim. R. P. Cuzzort, Using Social Thought (Mountain View, CA: Mayfieid, 1989), 31-32. 35. Barkun, Disaster and the Millennium, 43.


1 Apocalyptic Prophecy to Millenarian Revolution

he idea of a messiah, or deliverer, who will miraculously and abruptly Tsomeday return to earth and usher in a Utopian, paradisiacal world of justice

and harmony is a fundamental tenet of Judeo-Christian doctrine. In its strictly religious connotation, millenarianism refers to a thousand years and has its origins in Christ's prophesied reign in person, on earth, biblically foretold in the twentieth chapter of Revelation. The concept of messianism is the belief in a messiah, or liberator, who will bring about heaven on earth. The earliest known written reference to a messianic prophecy is in the Old Testament Book of Daniel, written around 165 B.C.1 Besides its Judeo-Christian tradition, millenarianism has also been used as a descriptor for the idea of Mahdiship—the belief in the return of God's messenger to earth (the Mahdi)—common to the Shi'ite and Sunni sects of Islam.2 Islamic millenarianism is similar to the Christian form. Nonetheless, we should acknowledge some differences. Christians anticipate the Second Coming of Jesus Christ at the end of time. Muslims, on the other hand, expect that the Mahdi will "appear" or "rise" in response to an unbearable secular authority within society. The Mahdi's role is salvation through purification—a return to the sacred teachings of true Islam.3 In addition, Moslems do not anticipate a thousand-year reign of the Mahdi following his return to earth.4 Millenarianism has also been identified as an important element of many traditional religions in Asia, Africa, the South Pacific region, and the preconquest Americas.5 Indeed, it has been argued that few societies may be found in the world that do not possess a belief in the return of a culture hero in some form who will save society.6

18


It is appropriate for us to begin our comparative study of the functional role performed by millenarianism in the stages and process of our three non-Western revolutionary cases by taking a brief look at the evolution of the concept in the Western world. Millenarian expectations and their relationship to revolutions in China, Mexico, and Iran are directly linked to the evolution of revolutionary millenarian ideology in the West in three important ways. First, millenarianism has been an ingredient in all modern European revolutions, and salient comparisons exist between some of these Western upheavals and revolutionary events in our three non-Western cases. For example, symbolic comparisons have been drawn between the Puritan Revolution in seventeenth-century England and the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the 1970s.7 Second, both communism and fascism have been characterized as "secular religions" and "political religions," and asserted to be modern, temporal forms of millenarianism.8 Since these ideologies, particularly communism, have had an important influence on twentieth-century revolutions in both the East and the West, it would be a mistake to neglect this important argument. Finally, through the drawn-out processes of exploration and colonization, Western millenarian ideas and doctrines have been exported to non-Western regions and have frequently had a profound impact on local populations. In China, for example, Christian concepts and symbols, particularly the eschatological scheme, which were brought there by Western missionaries, had an intense personal impact on the leader of the massive Taiping Rebellion, Hung Hsiu-ch'uan, and provided an important ideological foundation to the movement he led in the midnineteenth century. In Mexico, the millenarianism of the Spanish Franciscan priests who travelled with Hernan Cortes clashed with existing Aztec chiliasm and engendered a religio-political syncretism that continues to influence Mexican society. Thus, the nature and specific content of millenarianism in the West and, in particular, its relationship to European revolutionary ideology supply us with important points of reference for a study of revolutions in our three non-Western examples. THE REVOLUTIONARY MILLENARIAN PARADIGM From its beginnings, millenarianism appeared as a response to foreign domination, perceived corruption, and cultural imperialism, injected into a society and manifesting an abrupt change in the existing social order. Additionally, it exhibited a profound potential for revolutionary violence. Indeed, the prophecies of Daniel, a centerpiece of Jewish apocalyptic literature,9 emerged in the midst of events surrounding a lower-class Jewish revolt against Greek hegemony over ancient Palestine. For over three hundred years the Jewish community in Palestine lived in peace and security under the rule of the Persian empire. Nonetheless, the victory of Alexander the Great over the Persians, between 334 and 331 B.C, brought the entire Eastern Mediterranean region under control of the Greeks. After Alexander's death,

Apocalyptic Prophecy to Millenarian Revolution

19

in the second century B.C, the Greeks placed Judaea under the political authority of the Syro-Greek dynasty of the Selucids. Unlike their Persian predecessors, who had little regard for the local traditions and cultures of the peoples living in the lands they conquered, the Greeks sought to dominate local tribes and villages by assimilating them into Hellenistic culture. The Greeks forced their language, sports, literature, arts, and eventually their polytheistic religion on those who inhabited the lands they conquered in an apparent effort to build unity within the empire. In addition, Greek colonists tended to migrate into newly won lands, also bringing with them their culture and religious beliefs.10 The Selucid effort to assimilate the Judaean region into the Greek culture met with fierce resistance among the Jews. Ultimately it divided the community along largely class lines. For many upper-class Jews, the worldly manners and sophisticated customs of Greek society had wide appeal. Many of them quickly adopted the more secular lifestyle and, in the process, jettisoned their traditional Jewish customs, including their religion. On the other hand, lower-class Jews clung to their traditional ways and came to view the elites as heretics for abandoning their spiritual and cultural life. As a result, a significant religious and political chasm emerged throughout the community. Many Jews feared that their traditional customs, religion, and, quite possibly, their way of life were marked for extinction.11 This chasm between upper-class and lower-class Jews widened significantly when the Selucid monarch, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, banned all public Jewish religious observances. To make matters worse, he ordered that statues of the Greek gods be placed in Jewish houses of worship. Such actions were viewed by traditional Jews as sacrilege. In response, they rose up in what became known as the Maccabean revolt, around 165 B.C In the dream in the Book of Daniel, which was written during the revolt, four beasts were effectively depicted as symbolizing four successive worldpowers, the Babylonian, the Median, the Persian, and the Greek. When the Greek Empire, in its turn, was eventually overthrown, Israel, which was personified as the "Son of Man," was to be "an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."12 Here we begin to see the dominant characteristics of the revolutionary millenarian paradigm: a foreign world dominated by a tyrannical and immoral power of seemingly demonic dimension that disrupts and threatens the way of life of a devout and deeply ethnocentric people. The subjugated people, generally occupying the lower strata of society, believing themselves to be saints on earth—God's chosen elect—come to oppose this worldly tyranny and seek to defeat it. Victory, which is viewed as inevitable and according to God's plan, represents the final denouement of history manifested in the Kingdom of the Saints—heaven on earth.13 Later millenarian movements that emerged concurrently with religious dissent in Western Europe in the medieval era demonstrated a similar character. Prompted by a growing dissatisfaction with an increasingly corrupt and unresponsive church,14 peasant movements led by charismatic prophets began to appear, demanding moral reform.15

10


Eventually, these wandering preachers attracted particularly devoted foilowings and often came to be perceived as living saints or the returned Messiah. In some cases, these groups developed into a full-fledged social movement that was distinctly millenarian. These movements found their most receptive audience in those areas that were becoming seriously overcrowded and undergoing rapid social and economic change.16 Traditional agrarian socioeconomic systems were in the midst of powerful change in response to early industrialization. Faced with the development of basic industries (such as textiles), rapid population growth, and overcrowding resulting from rapid urbanization, these societies were in the nascent stages of modernization. Such a transformation brought cultural shock and disorientation, disrupted the existing socioeconomic order, and had a powerful impact on* traditional life.17 Social change has always created social dislocation and normative disturbance. Dislocated groups and individuals who feel the impact of profound change eventually need to be effectively blended into the new social structures that emerge as a result of such change. At the same time, these groups and individuals may also demand that they be included in the emerging new political system. Political movements that inevitably appear on the scene to meet these demands have often been a major contributing factor in the occurrence of revolution.18 Revolutionary millenarianism evolved as a mechanism for the peoples of these societies to deal with profound socioeconomic change and as a channel for their reintegration into new forms of societal community.19 These "Salvationist groups" or millenarian movements of the medieval and early modern period exhibited remarkably consistent characteristics.20 First, although these movements found support among all classes, clearly their most ardent support and most of their adherents came from the lower strata of society. Second, the sheer desperation of the populace, resultingfromnot one but a series of disasters occurring in these areas, added a particularly compelling appeal to the message of wandering prophets. Such events as drought, famine, plague, economic dislocation, overcrowding, and social and cultural change—indeed, even physically disturbing or frightening occurrences such as earthquakes, comets, or solar eclipses—could trigger millenarian speculations. Medieval millenarians believed that heaven on earth would be preceded by some type of social disaster initiated by the coming of the Antichrist.21 As a result, every generation in these societies looked for the "signs" that might indicate the onset of a period of demonic reign that was most assuredly to emerge in conditions of severe social and economic stress and catastrophe.22 Those members of society who were unskilled—most likely the majority— found themselves poorly prepared for employment in new industries. This provoked a sense of deprivation when they compared their condition to that of others. These early millenarian movements emerged among predominantly agrarian populations that were usually isolated from the mainstream of society.23 The identifiable position or place of these peoples within society had been lost. Filial


21

relationships and the traditional structure of their rural village and its complementary social network were deteriorating as more and more people relocated to the cities. A durable history of religious-inspired millenarian doctrines was pervasive in these societies, as was the availability of potential charismatic leadership.24 Finally, and perhaps most important, life, as these people had known it for generations, with its ancillary system of customary norms and rules of behavior, was disintegrating. In short, they must have believed that their functional world was coming to an end, causing both deep stress and indignation. It cannot be surprising that such a belief would serve to substantiate the pervasive religious-inspired eschatological prophecy existing in these societies. The adherents of these movements possessed a persistent sense of tension and anxiety over how to cope with the catastrophe of abrupt socioeconomic change and the introduction of new cultural norms, perceived as both alien and corrupt. This distress appears to have manifested itself as moral outrage and righteous indignation. Such indignation, in response to social injustice, is recognized as a necessary and sufficient catalyst of political violence.25 Indignation calls for an individual or a group to construe the events that are happening around them within the context of their personal normative system. In order to label an action as "immoral" or "an injustice," one must compare that action to one's personal values. Indeed, what one individual may consider to be immoral, another may find fully acceptable as an appropriate action. In other words, indignation is a concept grounded in one's culture. It dictates that one compare what has happened to one's expectation of what "ought" to have happened and "depends upon a learned standard of what is right and wrong." Defined as "the attitude and behavioral manifestations of wrathfulness because of unworthy or unjust treatment,"26 indignation is a source of political violence, can play an important role in the onset of revolution, and appears to have some relationship with the expression of millenarian expectations.27 To many millenarians, paradise is viewed as an egalitarian community. In the eyes of God, many chiiiasts argue, all humans are the same. Thus, the Utopia promised by the advent of the millennium will most certainly be a classless society—there will be no rich and poor; no haves and have-nots. As a result, the injection of a new order or hierarchy into a society—one that divides humans into unequal classes through profound socioeconomic change—has frequently engendered millenarian expectations. For example, as the modern world began to take shape in Western Europe, particularly in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when the class divisions engendered by industrialization came to be an important source of conflict, one sees an increase in indignation of the lower classes toward the growing wealth of the emerging middle class; the bourgeoisie. Concurrently, there was an increase in both explicitly religious and secular millenarianism within these areas.28 The indignation engendered by the perceived violation of one's spiritual values, in particular the search for "natural justice" and the egalitarian society, can be particularly volatile. For example, George Rude* argues that collective indignation

11


manifested itself in the sense of anger and violent dissatisfaction at the economic and social injustices felt by angry crowds in late-eighteenth-century and early-nineteenth century France and England. He asserts that these crowds were seeking "natural justice," and exhibited, although Rude downplays the idea, millenarian expectations.29 JOACHITE PROPHECY: THE IDEA OF HUMAN PROGRESS In the late twelfth century, a Calabrian abbot and hermit, Joachim of Fiore, provided an important doctrinal foundation for the spread of millenarianism in the West—one that would have an impact on early religious activities in the New World. He has been described as "without a doubt the greatest medieval apocalyptic thinker and the creator of one of the most influential of all Christian theologies of history."30 The Joachite prophecy stated that history involved three successive stages, each of them presided over by one of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. The first was the Age of the Father, or of the law—an age of excessive fear and bondage for all people. The second was the Age of the Son or of the Gospel—one that was characterized by faith and filial submission. The third era, which was yet to come, would be the Age of the Spirit—one of love, joy, and freedom, "when the knowledge of God would be revealed directly in the hearts of all men."31 In short, the third era of Joachite prophecy was to be the arrival of the millennium. Such a prophecy strongly influenced future millenarian movements by seemingly providing a means of forecasting history. Joachim's new eschatology offered an optimistic viewpoint of the world yet to come and stood in direct contrast to the prevailing gloomy perspective of history "enshrined in the mainline Augustinian eschatology."32 Prophets of revolutionary millenarianism also found in interpretations of the ancient idea of an ideal, egalitarian state another important source of eschatological expectation. Since the ancient world, people had spoken of a Golden Age characterized by a perfect society without status, wealth, oppression, or exploitation. At its foundation was the idea of justice as a natural manifestation of God. Throughout the medieval period, this Golden Age was believed by most people to have been lost in the distant past forever. Yet the appeal of such a paradise never lost its salience and was kept alive by a small but idealistic group of religious sectarians.33 Nonetheless, in the turbulence and pervasive social injustices of late fourteenth-century Western Europe, the notion of an ideal, egalitarian Golden Age again rose to prominence as a powerful social doctrine representing a new hope for the redemption of humankind.34 The revolutionary millenarian movements that erupted between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries in Western Europe—most notably, the Taborites of Bohemia, which emerged during the Hussite Wars around 1380; the League of the Elect, led by Thomas Muntzer; and the Anabaptists, who ruled Munster from 1532 to 1535—were profoundly influenced by the idea of a potential egalitarian Golden Age and essentially anarcho-communist in their ideology.35 In this context, Norman Cohn suggests that they represent the antecedents of twentieth-century totalitarian


13

movements, such as Nazism and communism, which he theorizes are modern, secularized forms of millenarianism.36 He points out that Thomas Muntzer remains a hero to modern-day Marxists.37 Indeed, Friedrich Engels argues that the "chiliastic dream-visions" of the Taborites offered a convenient, yet significant starting point for class struggle in the world: Only in the teachings of Munzer [sic] did these communist strains express the aspirationsof a real fraction of society. He was thefirstto formulate them with a certain definiteness, and since him they have been observed in every great popular upheaval, until they gradually merged with the modern proletarian movement just as the struggle of free peasants in the Middle Ages against feudal domination which was ensnaring them more and more merged with the struggles of serfs and bondsmen for complete abolition of the feudal system.38 The English Civil War (1642-1646) involved elements of millenarian speculation on a well-organized, national level. During this period apocalyptic expectations were fueled by such radical movements as the Diggers, who also professed an explicitly anarcho-communist ideology manifested in their complete rejection of the institution of private property; and the Fifth Monarchy Men, whose belief in the impending reign of Christ on earth led them to attempt coups against both the Protectorate and the restored monarchy.39 Following the Restoration these movements were increasingly viewed as irrational "enthusiasts" and extremists who sought to disrupt the prevailing social order and faded into obscurity by the end of the seventeenth century. However, their millenarian beliefs and writings retained an important measure of respectability among the popular religions of England for some time to come.40 SECULAR MILLENARIANISM IN THE WEST By the eighteenth century, the idea of millenarianism in the West came to be seen less as an excessive form of religious enthusiasm that had its appeal among largely marginal segments of society and more in terms consistent with mainstream Western thought. In particular, millenarianism became increasingly associated with the powerful Enlightenment idea of progress. Christian orthodoxy was coming under increasing criticism among many scholars and philosophers of Western Europe. As the power of science was on the rise, that of religion was on the decline. More and more intellectuals came to agree with Descartes that science, which had already unlocked many of the secrets of the physical and biological world, could also be harnessed to reveal the ultimate truths of the social world, by applying its principles to economics, politics, human nature, and the law.41 As a result, many became highly critical of orthodox religion as something that actually retarded the development of society rather than contributed to its progress. The late-seventeenth-century and early-eighteenth-century French writer, Fontenelle, for example, in his Thoughts on the Plurality of Worlds, celebrated the

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power of rationalism and the order of the universe. He "defended mechanical law in place of providence, and he helped to lead men away from Christianity and the Church to religious skepticism, and to an all embracing faith in science as a harbinger of the later Enlightenment period."42 The glorification of science, concurrent with severe criticism of the teachings of Christianity,43 set the stage for a new kind of human salvation in the eighteenth century. As a result, a new form of religion began to emerge, one that placed its faith in the enormous power of secular, rational thought. The idea of human progress became a form of social redemption; a notion that transformed forever traditionally religious conceptions of the ultimate fate of humankind. Such a transformation engendered a new secular political "religion," one that converted the role of God to that of "natural law." Nonetheless, this transformation did not jettison the function of the Deity. Rather, it was merely "disguised," and this allowed for a broad interpretation, and an equally broad appeal, of the idea of "progressive" millennialism.44 The powerful idea of humankind progressing through history toward social perfection without the aid of a supernatural messiah, was perhaps the most powerful conception to emerge out of the European Enlightenment.45 Yet, it must be understood that such an idea emerged out of the existing Christian teachings regarding a future paradise.46 The idea of secular human progress based on the absolute power of science and reason was not a concept that required a broad leap from the Book of Revelation. With only a slight alteration in the pervasive Christian scheme of a progress toward a final salvation, one was capable of conceiving of a secularized millennium. Science and the force of human reason replaced the Second Coming of Jesus Christ as the deliverer of the masses to the promised land of erudition and enlightenment. Ignorance replaced the symbolism of the dark powers of Satan. While such an idea was logically insignificant, it was nonetheless substantively huge because it brought heaven down to earth, and seemed to substitute the hopefulness of a real Utopia for the gloom of some intangible one that was to come only after death. Ultimately, such an idea moved from the margins of society to the center of intellectual activity. For example, in the period immediately preceding the French Revolution,47 philosophers such as Condorcet and Morelly, as well as other members of the French intelligentsia collectively known as the philosophes, sought to give the ancient myth of the Golden Age a new, modern twist. Scientific rationalism was married to the idea of progress. What emerged was the possibility of social redemption and the creation of a human-made, this-worldly Utopia.48 The eighteenth-century philosophes believed that they were proselytizing "what amounted to a new religion for humankind."49 Morelly, who has been described as "the only consistent communist among the eighteenth century thinkers," combined Rousseau's idea of the General Will with an attack on private property to arrive at a rather primitive theory of socialism. His Code of Nature was the "first modern book to characterize communism as a practical program capable of being achieved


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here and now; not simply a Utopian fantasy."50 It was a powerful influence on later socialist thinkers, such as Babeuf and Fourier.51 Condorcet boldly asserted that the history of Europe could be identified to have occurred in ten distinct phases of development, of which he observed the present to be the ninth. The tenth stage, he declared, was imminent and would be one characterized by infinite "perfectibility.,'52 Everything tells us that we are approaching the era of one of the grand revolutions of the human race. What can better enlighten us as to what we may expect, what can be a surer guide to us, amidst its commotions, than the picture of the revolutions that have preceded and prepared the way for it? The present state of knowledge assures us that it will be happy. But is it not upon condition that we know how to assist it with all our strength?53 Rather than living in the darkness of ignorance and gloom, Condorcet believed that humanity had now developed an all-powerful instrument capable of "ascertaining the truth of natural philosophy, of testing the effects of history and of formulating laws for taste. The forces of historical development had opened the door of understanding and, as a result, humankind now possessed the means to overcome the old mistakes of its infancy that will forever preserve us from a relapse into former ignorance."54 The vision of a total social transformation and salvation that was to result from purely human efforts gathered its strength from emerging and explicitly secular contemporary philosophies: the power of rational thought and reason, the idea of a national mission, the growing and potentially malevolent power of ethnicity and racism; and later, the dialectic of Marxism, advancing toward the communist Utopia.55 MARX AND THE COMMUNIST MILLENNIUM The convergence of the wretched conditions of early-modern industrial society and the innovative ideas of the Enlightenment period had created an environment for the philosophical connection of the Christian concept of the millennium with the idea of historical progress. Out of this fusion emerged a secularized millenarianism that subsequently became a modern and potent historical force—out of the social disaster of the present will emerge a new and perfect society. The most powerful apostle of this new dialectic was Karl Marx. While his was not the original philosophy of socialist utopianism, Marxism has undeniably been the most influential one, particularly to twentieth-century revolutionaries.56 In addition to the ideas of late-eighteenth-century socialism, Marx was intellectually influenced by two other sources: Hegelianism and the writings of Ludwig Feuerbach. Marx was attracted to the teachings of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel because they provided him with a way of seemingly finding meaning and hope in history. Hegel had been a professor at the University of Berlin until his death in 1831. Yet

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his teachings remained a significant influence when Marx began his studies there in 1836. Hegel was concerned with the history of humankind in the widest and most general sense. He argued that the historical process of human development is not random or meaningless. Rather, he believed it to be both understandable and inevitable. He argued that the world was progressing toward a human objective that was predetermined by God. As such, Hegel was a proponent of historicism—the idea of history as a process above and beyond individual human actions.57 Hegel taught that a "Spirit," which is inexorable, is the force behind humankind's growing realization of who it is and its freedom.58 This Spirit moves history along a predetermined path; one that is neither straight nor simple.59 He argued that the Spirit provides a will, or a destiny, to the human experience. This will, or destiny, embodied in history, imposes itself on individuals, and there is nothing one can do to stop the process. This is the concept of development—a wholly universal concept. It is life and movement as such. The life of God in himself, the life of universality in nature and the spirit, of everything living—the lowest and the highest—this is what development is. It is a self-differentiation, a bringing of self into existence, into being for another's apprehension, and in this process remaining self-identical. It is the eternal creation of the world, in a different form the generation of the Son, and the eternal reversion of the spirit into itself—an absolute movement which at the same time is absolute rest—eternal self communion. This is the Idea's being with itself, the capacity to revert into itself, to coincide with its other and yet to be at home with itself with the other. This capacity, this power, to be at home with oneself in the negative of oneself is also the freedom of man.60 At the foundation of historicism is the dialectic—the idea that human progress comes about as the by-product of struggle and conflict between the existing order and opposition to that order.61 Hegel believed that the dialectic moves humanity on to the next higher level of existence. Individuals acting on the stage of history seemingly alone in their interests, he argued, are unknowingly fulfilling the grand designs of the dialectic. As a result, the great changes of history must occur because they are the logical conclusions of the preceding stages. In this context, historicists believe that "history makes man, rather than man making history."62 In Hegelian philosophy, history is akin to a steam locomotive whose movement cannot be sidetracked and whose schedule cannot be appreciably altered. In short, history is the true spiritual power of the universe—God's will operating in the world.63 Marx, although a historicist, possessed a slightly different interpretation of the dialectic from that of Hegel. My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but it is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of "the Idea," he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of "the Idea." With me,


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on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.64 Specifically, Hegel conceived of the idea of the dialectic as spiritual-based, whereas Marx conceived of it as temporal-based. Marx was also profoundly influenced by the philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach. Indeed, as one scholar has asserted, "if forced to state Feuerbach's philosophical genealogy, he would have to say that he was son of Hegel and father of Marx."65 Feuerbach narrowed the notion of Hegel's "Spirit" or "Idea" to a secular construction; one that existed only here and now, in the real and material world, and not in the spiritual realm.66 Although Feuerbach sharply criticized Hegel's idealism, he was nonetheless a historicist. His focus, unlike Hegel's, was on material rather than spiritual forces. Feuerbach rejected the intellectual coexistence of, and the seeming congruence of theological thought and scientific reason that existed in nineteenth-century Europe. He believed that not only were the two notions incongruent, they were incompatible.67 Feuerbach argued that religion was a synthetic construction of humankind. It represented merely the projection of human needs, fears, and desires onto a mythical world that existed only in human consciousness.68 Nonetheless, religion was an involuntary action of humans. Once one projects his own feelings onto God, God becomes nothing more than a subject. And humans become the object of this subject. At this point theology intervenes to explain the nature of humans and their universe in simple, understandable language.69 Feuerbach was the first philosopher to demonstrate that religion has its origins in the needs and wants of humankind. He believed that it was an essential and involuntary fulfillment of one's feeling's, formulated in imagery that results from one's projection of oneself onto the objective image of a supposedly divine being. In other words, the substance of religion is purely human.70 Marx went beyond Feuerbach and attacked the conditions in society that made religions necessary. Religious suffering, he believed, helped the lower classes cope with extreme poverty and the horrible conditions of their lives in nineteenth-century Europe. Marx, much like Feuerbach, conceived of religion as a secular-based phenomenon.71 "Man makes religion, religion does not make man. In other words, religion is the self-consciousness and self-feeling of man who has either not yet found himself or has already lost himself again .... Religion is the cry of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people."72 By arguing that religion "is the opium of the people," Marx meant that it numbed the lower classes to an irrational perspective of life's conditions and led them to ignore a rational perspective of the exploitation that they were forced to endure as a result of capitalism. Marx believed that humankind should abandon the conditions that require these types of illusions.

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In his writings, Marx never identified an end of history and, thus, espoused no definable eschatology; no static end point. Nonetheless, he was convinced of the inherent majesty of humankind and went to great lengths to accurately lay out the history of humankind's degradation by institutions and whole social systems. He believed that the proletariat, the workers oppressed by the exploitive capitalist system, ultimately were destined to perform a redemptive role in world history. As a result, humankind would be installed to its rightful place in the world.73 The coming social transformation, to be wrought by the proletariat, would be the final, definitive revolution, one that redeemed all of humankind. Throughout his writings, Marx offers numerous visions of what life in a society redeemed by the proletariat—the true communist society—would be like; "where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."74 In perhaps his most articulate prophecy of this future community, he wrote: In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labour, and therewith also the antithesis between manual and physical labour, has vanished; after labour has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: Fro each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!75 Marx portrayed the arrival of the communist millennium as the advent of true human freedom brought on by the total elimination of capitalism: In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing to-day and another to-morrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter,fisherman,shepherd or critic.76 The philosophy of Marx offers a profound sense of hope to those caught up in the often wretched conditions created by early industrialization, by identifying a new dialectic—one that catapults the exploited and oppressed class to the top of a transformed social order. It promises that capitalism will ultimately fail as a result of its own inner contradictions and the forces of history. And, thus, in the new communist society, the exploitive and alienating nature of capitalism will be removed forever. Perhaps not surprisingly, it is this millenarian element of Marxist thought that modern revolutionaries have tended to emphasize. Not infrequently, revolutionary movements in both the East and the West have offered up carefully crafted perversions of Marx's ideas "which they have molded into the creeds of political and surrogate religions largely aimed at the lower classes."77 Indeed, it is perhaps in its most corrupted form, and in contexts entirely unforeseen by Marx, that we see the true legacy of his doctrine and its enduring revolutionary appeal.


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MILLENARIANISM: A MODERN POLITICAL RELIGION The rapid progress of knowledge in eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century Europe and the growing faith in the power of rationalism, not only as a way to explain things but also as an effective tool for solving problems, combined with the increasing force of antireligious sentiment, allowed people to more fully understand both the origins and the nature of their universe in scientific and thus secular terms. Predictably, one result was a declining reliance upon Christian doctrine and faith.78 Nonetheless, modern peoples did not lose their need for religion in the broader sense. They still required a simple, comprehensible, and satisfying picture of a world of structure, values, and purpose, possessing the potential for a better future. Indeed, the disoriented classes of nineteenth-century Europe, uprooted by industrialization from their traditional way of life and increasingly thrust into an everyday world of anomie and confusion, possessed urgent needs of this kind. While some clung to traditional religious systems, others adopted modem substitutes. The political movements that emerged in eighteenth-century Europe in the form of socialism, anarchism, or communism represent modern religious substitutes. As such, they are secularized forms of millenarianism largely because, while their chief aims are social revolution and transformation, their ideologies possess the characteristics of a secular or political religion. Although they identify no specific divine form, these revolutionary movements nonetheless represent an organized system of beliefs in the ultimate perfection of the human condition and the advent of a future paradise, wrought by the efforts of people themselves, which is uniquely upheld and fostered by a profound zealousness and deeply held devotion. They address ultimate concerns and clearly demonstrate "that an apparently chaotic world is underlain by profound moral order"79 As such, they perform a religiouslike function for their adherents: In Europe and elsewhere, for the past century and a half, there have always been men and movements animated by ... faith, preparing for the Day, referring all their ideas to some all-embracing system sure of some pre-ordained andfinaldenouement of the historic drama with all its conflicts into an absolute harmony. Jacobins may have differed from the Babouvists, the Blanquists from many of the secret societies in thefirsthalf of the nineteenth century, the Communists from the Socialists, and the Anarchists from all others, yet they all belong to one religion.80 Nevertheless, the concept of millenarianism as a social and political force for action is problematic and not without controversy. Some important questions arise as we attempt to characterize and understand its true nature. For example, a significant schism exists in millenarian scholarship over the rationality of millenarian movements. Is participation in such groups a rational act or a sign of psychopathology? The split between those who attribute such movements to a collective pathological disturbance versus those who argue that they result from a desire for revitalization of society—emerging from a particularly

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perceptive intuition about collective social problems—is best represented in the theoretical constructs of Norman Cohn and Anthony F. C. Wallace, respectively. Cohn argues that the medieval millenarian movements he has studied may be characterized as a collective form of psychopathology. He implies that these movements had little understanding of what was happening to their society and responded in a way that was "peculiar," in the sense that their behavior was abnormal and irrational.81 In another study, Eric Hobsbawm has drawn conclusions quite similar to those of Cohn. In his analysis of southern European millenarian movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, he argues that such groups as the Lazzaretti, Freemasons, Blanquists, and Spanish Anarchists, were led by their millenarian expectations and religious ritualism into irrational modes of organization and agitation, rendering them incapable of achieving their goals. In contrast to Cohn, Hobsbawm attributes the irrationality of these movements to a lack of ideological insight rather than to psychopathology. Such movements, he concludes, were "primitive," "archaic," or "pre-political."82 In contrast to Cohn and Hobsbawm, the anthropologist Anthony F. C Wallace, who has studied primarily non-Western millenarian movements, argues that under conditions of severe collective stress and potential cultural disintegration, societies come to realize that they must either initiate a process of "revitalization" or "face extinction." According to Wallace, millenarian movements are, in reality, instruments of social renewal that present a new and potent ideology offering an imminent and efficacious solution for what appears to most to be an especially grim period of social catastrophe or disaster. A revitalization movement is defined as a deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture. Revitalization is thus, from a cultural standpoint, a special kind of culture change phenomenon: the persons involved in the process of revitalization must perceive their culture, or some major areas of it, as a system (whether accurate or not); they must feel that this cultural system is unsatisfactory, and they must innovate not merely discrete items, but a new cultural system.83 In other words, the "revitalization" or millenarian movement is a rational process with very deliberate goals—cultural adaptation to a new social paradigm wrought by perceived deleterious, yet nonetheless real, change. Perhaps an important component in this debate over the rationality of these movements lies in the potential for wide variation in both composition and form of chiliast expectations.84 Indeed, such movements have frequently demonstrated that they are highly pliable and readily capable of being shaped into some form that is appealing to their believers, addressing their specific needs and yearnings. All millenarian movements possess the potential for transmutation and adaptation to meet the exigencies of the moment within a society.85 For example, as we shall soon see, the Babi movement, which began as a millenarian-inspired rebellion against the Persian monarchy in the midnineteenth century, later was transformed


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into a profoundly pacifist, worldwide religious faith, Baha'ism, in the twentieth century. To fully understand this potential for transmutation, we must begin with the fact that the secular idea of an immediate, this-worldly, collective transformation of society, to be wrought by the hands of man himself through a process dominated by the effective use of scientific reason, is a modern phenomenon. Yet such an idea begins with the available raw material of the older and more durable form of millenarianism, a form that is grounded in religious dogma. It is precisely the potential for transmutation that makes millenarianism such an elusive idea to define and characterize. Indeed, perhaps it is a mistake for us to characterize revolutionary millenarian movements as either explicitly religious or explicitly political, when they generally tend to exhibit the characteristics of both.86 For example, although Islam and Christianity are traditionally looked upon as religious millenarian movements, each originated as a revolutionary movement and possessed a political nature from the onset.87 In a similar way, Marxism demonstrates the attributes of a "secular theology of revolution, as opposed to those of a political theory."88 In this way, the powerful idea of a millennial kingdom on earth, though cloaked from the beginning in religious dogma, has nonetheless always possessed an inherent potential for revolution. While it is far beyond the scope of this present study to reach any significant conclusions in the important debate as to the rationality of millenarian movements, nonetheless, I will identify two relevant observations of revolutionary millenarianism which appear to support the plausibility of Wallace's argument. First, if millenarian movements are outbursts of psychopathological behavior, then they would tend to emerge at virtually any time, occurring at random and exhibiting little, if any, uniform patterns in their origin. Yet this is not the case. Revolutionary millenarianism tends to emerge in the presence of a consistently uniform pattern of factors, which I shall explore later in this chapter. Second, the evidence of this study supports the notion that revolutionary millenarian movements represent a form of revitalization movement. They serve to offer therapeutic alternative beliefs that act to reduce social stress. Indeed, as we shall see, they often exhibit a rather practical approach to solving the problems of society, providing it with new bearings in response to a changed conception of reality. CONDITIONS SURROUNDING THE EMERGENCE OF REVOLUTIONARY MILLENARIANISM The fusion of religiously inspired millenarianism with the powerful idea of progress, which emerged in the West in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, while creating a potent new force of radical social ideology, represents only another phase in the evolution of millenarian thought, albeit its most important one. Nonetheless, the essential components of the millenarian phenomenon remain the same.89 The powerful and durable millenarian notion of a chosen people purifying a tyrannical world by destroying the agents of corruption is one that is a

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common thread in the twentieth-century, non-Western revolutions in China, Indian Mexico, and Iran. Millenarianism represents the manifestation of people's disappointment and unhappiness with their situation and condition here on earth that materializes in a collective yearning for immediate and complete solutions to the problems of society. The idea of revolutionary millenarianism represents the most radical form of this yearning and tends to emerge in the presence of three specific conditions. First, the potential for revolutionary millenarianism exists when a lengthy and durable tradition of religiously inspired chiliasm pervades society; when there is a collective attachment to thinking about the end time of the world largely in religious terms and when messianic beliefs are at the core of widely held eschatological doctrine. The second condition necessary for the emergence of revolutionary millenarianism is found in social disorder and disaster, when a society comes to experience extreme distress, disorientation, and social dislocation, the causes of which are largely unclear to the mass of the population.90 Catastrophic events hastened by either external or internal factors can trigger a hope of social salvation when the severity of stress is particularly acute and conventional solutions are unavailable or ineffective. Such events manifest themselves in cultural shock and disorientation which, in turn, engender moral outrage, righteous indignation, and collective demands for natural justice. Ultimately, if not repressed or brought under control by a ruling power, this outrage and indignation erupts as political violence. An important external factor resulting in social disorder and disaster, and one that is relevant to our study, is the consequence that follows the contact between more complex and less complex cultures—what Michael Barkun refers to as the "colonial hypothesis." The colonial hypothesis asserts that millenarianism emerges in an inferior or colonial society in response to intervention or invasion by a superior foreign power that attempts to impose its cultural values, seen as corrupt and satanic, on the life of the lesser state. Subjection to a foreign power is a particularly grievous experience when a society is profoundly ethnocentric and when the political leader is also a religious leader or, at the least, is perceived as one who is divinely inspired. Perhaps not surprisingly, millenarian expectations tend to emerge as a specific response to the suppression of, or serious interference with, the traditional religious practices of the native peoples.91 Barkun argues that "the colonial hypothesis, in effect, holds that there is a causal sequence at work: culture contact-social change-mental disturbance-millenarian movements."92 Indeed, Western imperialism has been often identified as a critical factor in inducing the growth of chiliastic and messianic cults in non-Western colonial regions largely because it both seeks to socialize the native populations it dominates and arouses the native peoples to their economic backwardness and weaknesses in relationship to the foreign intervenor. For example, millenarian movements in colonial societies in Africa and Asia have been observed to have borrowed extensivelyfromthe evangelism and messi-


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anic imagery of Christianity imported to these regions.93 Citing examples among Kikuyu, Maoris, and Bantu, Vittorio Lanternari identifies how the people of these tribes "found their sufferings reflected in the biblical history of the Hebrew people." Perhaps just as important, they discovered a "powerful inspiration in both the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ that could be effectively compared to their own struggle for political independence and promise of salvation."94 Revolutions in these colonial societies were frequently injected with the images and ideas of popular religion. The two were most powerfully and effectively combined into a doctrine of millenarian promise; a hope of spiritual and earthly salvation. Internal factors engendering stress include the transformation of a society's socioeconomic order resulting from rapid industrialization and modernization, severe hardship caused by natural disasters, or oppression at the hands of a native ruling class. Like external sources of severe social stress, internal sources may also cause a violent millenarian response.95 A critical third condition necessary for the advent of revolutionary millenarianism is the emergence of a charismatic leader who exerts a profound influence on a large segment of society by shaping a reaction to recent experiences of catastrophe and social stress. This response takes the form of a call for a total, collective, this-worldly revitalization of society. Tactically, the charismatic leader facilitates this summons by appealing to the pervasive religious millenarian beliefs that exist in society.96 Such leaders consciously fashion a millenarian ideology that is widely accepted and refined in great detail by adherents. Thus, the potential for the emergence of a charismatic leader is grounded in the acute problems and stresses of the society—a notion we shall explore later in much greater detail. It is an important thesis of this study that, in varying degrees and forms, all three of these conditions that I have identified as necessary for the emergence of revolutionary millenarianism were present in twentieth-century China, Mexico, and Iran, and as a result, they became important components of the stages and process of revolutionary upheavals in these non-Western societies. External factors, principally the forces of Western imperialism, combined with internal factors, created conditions of extreme stress in all three cases in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This collective social stress engendered violent outbursts of millenarian rebellion and ultimately revolution, led by a charismatic cult figure who sought to transform and revitalize society. Logically, a study of the functional role performed by millenarianism in these three cases must include an analysis of the circumstances accounting for the emergence of the three critical conditions in each case. NOTES 1. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 19-20. See also Norman Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 163-75. Until around 1500 B.C., most people in the world (Cohn specifically points to the Egyptians, the Mesopotamians, and the Vedic Indians) generally believed that

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once the world had been created and nature established by the gods, it was incapable of change. Yet sometime between 1500 and 1200 B.C. the Iranian prophet Zoroaster made a philosophical break from this "static" worldview and became "the earliest known example of a particular kind of prophet—the kind commonly called 'millenarian'" (95). Zoroaster taught his followers that the time would come when the forces of good and evil in the world would meet in powerful combat. At such time, God would defeat the demonic forces of the world and inaugurate a new era of peace and good. Cohn asserts that Zoroaster's prophecy regarding the end time had a profound influence on many later Jewish groups and ultimately found its way into the Hebrew Bible. See also Bernard McGinn, Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 10-16, on the origins of Jewish apocalyptic literature. 2. Youssef M. Choueiri, Islamic Fundamentalism (Boston: Twayne, 1990), 23-29. The idea of the Mahdi is clearly a millenarian concept. In contrast, the Imam (divinely chosen leaders of Islam) did not originate as such. The term originally referred to religious leaders who were direct descendants of the fourth Caliph Ali, the husband of Mohammed's daughter Fatima. Mahdi literally translates as "the divinely gaidcd one." In traditional Islamic revivalism, the coming of the Mahdi "was to occur at the turn of every century according to the Islamic calendar." "Upon the emergence of a renewer (mujaddid), or the manifestation of the Mahdi, depended the ability to initiate the return to unadulterated Islam... as well as the building of a new Muslim community adhering to, and ruled by, the prescribed indigenous laws. It may be safely assumed that this belief in renewal and Mahdism was the hallmark of Islamic revivalism." The concept of Mahdiship does not appear in the Quran, nor in the sayings of Mohammed. Nonetheless, there is a consensus among Islamic revivalists as to its "validity and eventuality." Choueiri asserts that "this doctrine [of Mahdiship] is in fact an imaginative innovation fusing two separate traditions. The first is derived from Christian apocalyptic beliefs. The other embellished an Islamic political legend which flourished after the assassination in 661 of the Prophet's son-in-law and the fourth Caliph, Ali" (24-25). See also Arjomand, "Millennial Beliefs, Hierocratic Authority, and Revolution in Shi'ite Iran," 221-23; and Abdulaziz Abdulhussein Sachedina, Islamic Messianism: The Idea of the Mahdi in Twelver Shiism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981). Arjomand asserts that the notion of the Mahdi "entered the history of Islam in general and of Shi' ism in particular during the second civil war in the 680s. The term Mahdi is a derivative of the root h-d-y which denotes divine guidance—a Koranic notion as central to Islam as salvation is to Christianity" (221). Sachedina focuses on the concept of the Mahdi among Twelver Shi'ites. 3. Cf. Sachedina, 2. He asserts that the term messianism in its "Islamic context is frequently used to translate the important concept of an eschatological figure, the Mahdi, who as the foreordained leader 'willrise'to launch a great social transformation in order to restore and adjust all things under divine guidance." 4. Marshall G. S. Hodgson, "A Note on the Millennium in Islam," in Millennial Dreams in Action, ed. Sylvia L. Thrupp (The Hague: Mouton & Co, 1962), 218. 5. For an overview of millenarianism in Africa, see Guenther Lewy, Religion and Revolution; Vittorio Lanternari, The Religions of the Oppressed (New York: Mentor Books, 1965); T. O. Ranger, "Connexions between 'Primary Resistance' Movements and Modem Mass Nationalism in East and Central Africa," Journal of African History 9 (1968): 437-53, 631-41; in Asia, Michael Adas, Prophets of Rebellion', in the South Pacific region, Peter Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound; F. E. Williams, uThe Vailala Madness" and Other Essays, ed. Erik Schwimmer (Honolulu: The University of Hawaii Press, 1977); in the


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preconquest Americas, Victoria Reifler Bricker, The Indian Christ, the Indian King: The Historical Substrate of Maya Myth and Ritual (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981); Enrique Florescano, Memory, Myth, and Time in Mexico: From the Aztecs to Independence, translated by Albert G. Bork with the assistance of Kathryn R. Bork (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1994); Jacques Lafaye, Quetzalcoatl and Guadalupe: The Formation of Mexican National Consciousness, 1531-1815 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976); James Mooney, The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890, abridged by Anthony F. C. Wallace, (1896 reprint, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965); Scott Peterson, Native American Prophecies (New York: Paragon, 1990); Robert Wasserstrom, Class and Society in Central Chiapas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983). See also Bryan Wilson, Magic and the Millennium: A Sociological Study ofReligious Movements of Protest among Tribal and Third-World Peoples (New York: Harper & Row, 1973). 6. Bryan Wilson, "Millennialism in Comparative Perspective," Comparative Studies in Society and History 6 (1963): 93-114. 7. Said Amir Arjomand, "Iran's Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective," World Politics 38 (1985): 410. Also, Tai Liu, Discord in Zion: The Puritan Divines and the Puritan Revolution 1640-1660 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1973), 50-51. "If Cromwell was Moses, then Khomeini was both Abraham and Moses in one; for the Puritan Saints, one could readily substitute the militant ulama; and for the fast sermons of 1642-1649, there were, under the Shah, the gatherings at forty-day intervals to commemorate the sacred Shi'a martyrs, and after the revolution, the Friday sermons at congregational prayers." See also Hugh TrevorRoper, "The Fast Sermons of the Long Parliament," in Religion, the Reformation and Social Change, 2nd ed. idem (London: Macmillan, 1972). 8. Cf. Norman Cohn, Pursuit ofthe Millennium: Revolutionary Messianism in Medieval and Reformation Europe and Its Bearing on Modern Totalitarian Movements, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961), 308-19; Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, Jules Monnerot, Sociology and Psychology in Communism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1960); Eric Voegelin, Science, Politics and Gnosticism: Two Essays (Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1968); and J. M. Rhodes, The Hitler Movement: A Modern Millenarian Revolution (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1980). It is interesting to note that Monnerot has described communism as "the twentieth-century Islam." 9. The term apocalypse is derived from the Greek apokalypsis, meaning "unveiling" or "uncovering." Apocalyptic literature sought to "unveil," to mere mortals, religious mysteries that previously had only been known in heaven. Almost all apocalyptic stories were pseudopigraphic. That is, their authorship was attributed to holy men who had lived in a prior period, often the distant past, yet, in fact, were written to appear as if they were contemporary writings. Cf. Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos, 163-64, and, McGinn, Antichrist, 11-12. McGinn characterizes an apocalypse as a revealing story that "introduced new constellations of religious meaning into ancient Judaism." An important component of all apocalyptic literature was the unique mediated delivery: "they come to particular historical sages through certain divine or heavenly messengers." "The account of the reception of the message usually says something about the sage who is purported to have received the message and the situation in which the heavenly revealer appeared" (11). 10. The Greek conquest and the resultant "mingling of traditions... brought a challenge to the Jews of the last three centuries b.c.e. that resulted in major changes in their religious views, not the least in the birth of apocalyptic eschatology." McGinn, 10. See also Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos, 163. 11. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 21.

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12. Daniel 8:13-14. Cf. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 21. 13. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 21. This paradigm, he asserts, is the most significant antecedent of the legacy of attraction to millenarianism in the modem world. 14. Cf. McGinn, Antichrist, 185 and Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, chap. 2, *The Tradition of Religious Dissent," 37-52. 15. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 70. For additional interpretations of millenarian speculation and its functional role in the late Middle Ages and early modem period, see also Majorie Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study ofJoachimism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969); Bernard McGinn, visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979); Howard Kaminsky, A History of the Hussite Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967); andF. C. Heyman, John Zizka and the Hussite Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955). 16. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 53. 17. Ibid., 16,40,110,158,224. A notable and not inconsequential exception to this may be found in the "Franciscan Spirituals" who thrived in thirteenth-century Italy. 18. For a similar analysis, see Arjomand, "Iran's Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective," 398. 19. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 59-60. 20.1 am referring to such outbursts of distinctly millenarian expectation as: the flagellant movement that emerged in Thuringia around 1348, the League of the Elect led by Thomas Muntzer in the latefifteenthcentury, the Brethren of the Free Spirit that appeared in central Germany in the second half of the fourteenth century, the English Peasants' Revolt led by John Ball in 1381, the Hussite movement of Bohemia in the early fifteenth century, and the central European Anabaptists of the sixteenth century. 21. For a detailed look at the role of the antichrist in medieval apocalyptic speculation, cf. McGinn, particularly 79-113. 'The continued development [following the early Christian era] by which thefigureof Antichrist gathered to himself new constellations of legendary materials shows how powerful the apocalyptic mentality remained in the centuries between 500andll00c.E"(80). 22. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 35. 23. Ibid., 64. 24. Ibid., 64. 25. Peter A. Lupsha, "Explanations of Political Violence: Some Psychological Theories versus Indignation," Politics and Society 2 (1971): 89-104. 26. Ibid., 96. 27. Ibid., 102-5. 'The concept of indignation is linked directly to the cultural-philosophical underpinnings of society . . . and, for this reason, [it] seems particularly appropriate for explaining violence, as its logic locates it in that intersection of the psychological and the ethical where ideas of lightness and legitimacy originate" (102). 28. For a look at millenarian movements as "cultfs] of the poor" seeking natural justice and a "levelling" between therichand poor, see E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage Books, 1966), 116-20,382-89,797-803. For example, in response to government repression in England in the 1790s (engendered by royal fears that the radicalism of the French Revolution would soon spread to Britain) there was a "sea-change in the attitudes of the inarticulate—or in the stmcture of feeling of the poor [that could] be found in an unexpected place. 1793 and 1794 saw a sudden emergence of millenarian fantasies, on a scale unknown since the 17th century [T]he poor and the


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credulous found [among others] a more literal prophet in Richard Brothers His Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times was published early in 1794. His prophecies combined a great knowingness as to the intentions of the almighty, with the usual paraphernalia from the Book of Revelation, in a language which combined the 'combustible matter' of poor men's dissent with that of the revolutionary era" (116-17). 29. George Rude\ The Crowd in History: A Study of Popular Disturbances in France and England, 1730-1848, revised ed. (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1981), 231-32, 238. "Millennial fantasies no doubt underlie many of the actions of the poor in the course of the French Revolution .... [W]hile the crowd behaved differently in different situations, the common elements were direct action and the imposition of some form of elementary 'natural' justice." 30. McGinn, Antichrist, 115. Other scholars have placed Joachim of Fiore in a similar significant role. Marjorie Reeves, for example, links his writings and their enduring appeal to the wave of anti-Semitism that swept Western Europe in the late medieval period. Cf. Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages. 31. For an analysis of Joachite influence on modem "philosophies of history," see Eric Voegelin, The New Science ofPolitics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), 110-21. 32. McGinn, Antichrist, 116. According to the Augustinian perspective of the end time, documented in The City of God in the early fifth century, the Book of Revelation was an allegory and the millennium described by John had, in fact, begun with the birth of Christianity and had already been fully "realized by the church." This perspective became the true teachings of the church for the next one thousand years. Indeed, Augustine was "openly hostile to apocalyptic eschatology . . . and opposed all attempts at reading history's course and determining the endtime." (76). Cf. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 29. 33. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 197. The Golden Age Myth was much more influential among the educated of medieval Europe, who could read classical sources, than among the unlettered masses, for whom biblical myths (e.g., Eden before the Fall) were more important. 34. Ibid., 198. 35. Ibid., 205-14,234-50,252-70. 36. Cohn, Revolutionary Messianism in Medieval and Reformation Europe, 308-19. 37. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 251. 38. Friedrich Engels, 'The Peasant War in Germany," in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels on Religion (New York: Schocken Books, 1964). Originally published in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Politisch-okonomische Revue, No. 5-6,1850. 39. Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas during the English Revolution (New York: Viking Press, 1972), 77-78,86-120. 40. Ibid., 306-12. Late nineteenth century Marxists, such as Eduard Bernstein, regarded the radical sects of the English Civil Wars as the forerunners of the Marxist movement. Cf. Eduard Bernstein, Cromwell and Communism (New York: Schocken Books, 1963). 41. Frederick B. Artz, The Enlightenment in France (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1968), 17-18. 42. Ibid., 24. In this context Fontenelle portrayed men of science as the equivalent of modem-day religious leaders. He "put the scientist in the niche that had formerly been reserved for the classical scholar or the artist in the Renaissance and by the saint in the Middle Ages. He created a kind of scientific and secular sainthood" (24). 43. Ibid., 3 \.,Thcphilosophes rejected the Christian notions of the feebleness of human intellect and mankind's intrinsic wickedness. Rather, they accepted the belief that human

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character was basically goodtas long as it was directed by rational thought. "They regarded the Church as intolerant and sunk in superstition" (34-35). 44. Ernest L. l\iveson, Millennium and Utopia: A Study in the Background of the Idea of Progress (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949), viii-ix. 45. Erich Fromm has drawn a similar conclusion regarding the character of the Enlightenment age. He asserts that throughout the period there was a growing attack on the Church that manifested in "the negation of all religious concepts." Nonetheless, "this negation of religion was only a new form of thought expressing the old religious enthusiasm, especially as far as the meaning and purpose of history is concerned. In the name of reason and happiness, of human dignity and freedom, the Messianic idea found new expression." See The Sane Society (New York: Henry Holt, 1955), 234-35. 46. Descartes felt that his scientific methods and ideas were incomplete until he could reconcile them with the existence of God. Cf. Charles Frankel, The Faith of Reason: The Idea of Progress in the French Enlightenment (New York: King's Crown Press, 1948), 19. 47. Indeed, millenarian expectations surrounded the iate-eighteenth-century revolutions in both the United States and France. Cf. Ruth Bloch, Visionary Republic: Millennial Themes in American Thought, 1756-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Nathan O. Hatch, The Sacred Cause of Liberty: Republican Thought and the Millennium in Revolutionary New England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977); Ernest L. T\iveson, Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America's Millennial Role (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968); and Clarke Garrett, Respectable Folly: Millenarians and the French Revolution in France and England (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975). Ruth Bloch argues that millenarian prophecies were "basic to the formation of American revolutionary ideology in the late eighteenth century" (xiii). 48. The philosophes perceived of science as absolute authority; much as many Christians perceived of the Bible as the divinely inspired absolute authority of God. See Frankel, 9. 49.Talmon,21. 50. Ibid., 17. 51. Artz, 128. "Morelly's communism can be traced back to Plato, to St. Thomas More, and to the Anabaptists ... His chief aim was to form a more moral society. As long as men based their society on self-interest, struggle, unhappiness, and chaos was inevitable. Harmony would only take place if society were deliberately organized on a moral basis. Communism was the only solution for all social problems, and communism was the code of nature" (129). 52. Ibid., 124-25. See also Frankel, 129. Condorcet believed that each of these epochs was distinguished by the unique problems that it faced. The history of each epoch was recorded in terms of the solutions that it contributed to these problems. 53. Condorcet, Outlines of an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind 19, quoted in Frankel, 128. 54. Quoted inTalmon, 18-19. 55. James Biilington, Fire in the Minds of Men: Origins of the Revolutionary Faith (New York: Basic Books, 1980). 56. Paradoxically, Marxism, on the one hand, expresses a vigorous millenarian vision of the future while, on the other hand, presenting a profound criticism of "utopianism"— that is, a visionary, systematic program for engendering an ideally perfect social order. Indeed, that which is "Utopian" in the Marxist vocabulary refers at best to useless fantasizing about the future, and often to reactionary ideologies opposed to the progressive path of history. Marxists themselves would never admit, nor do they believe, that Marxism is a form of


39

socialist utopianism. Cf. Maurice Meisner, Marxism, Maoism, and Utopianism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982), 6. 57. Hegel argued that there are three phases in the development of philosophy: subjective phase (which focused on the individual), the objective phase (that included the origin of ethics, morality, family, civil society, and the state), and the achievement of the absolute (in which the spirit expresses itself through art, religion, and philosophy). All of these stages ultimately coalesce in the unity of the "absolute spirit." See G.W.F. Hegel, "The Philosophy of Right," pp. 3-20, and "The Philosophy of Mind," pp. 292-315, in Hegel: The Essential Writings, ed. Frederick G. Weiss (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 253-338. 58. The "Spirit" lies at the center of Hegel's philosophical system. The original term used by Hegel was Geist, which has been translated as meaning both "mind" or "spirit." 59. Hegel's "Spirit" can be compared to Jean Jacques Rousseau's "general will," that is, the common rational spirit of the whole community that was made manifest. Cf. Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses, translated from the French by G.D.H. Cole (New York: Dutton, 1913). 60. G.W.F. Hegel, "Concept of the History of Philosophy," in Introduction to the Lectures on the History of Philosophy [1833], translated by T. M. Knox and A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 79. 61. Hegel did not invent the idea of the dialectic of history and the famous formula of thesis—antithesis—synthesis. It was first suggested by Johann Gottlieb Fichte. See ibid., 51. 62. William B. Chamberlain, Heaven Wasn 't His Destination: The Philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1941), 28. 63. It should be pointed out that at the time Marx attended the University of Berlin, there were two predominant schools of thought about Hegel's philosophy. The "Old Hegelians" were conservatives who sought to use the power of Hegel's teachings to bolster the Prussian monarchy. In contrast, the "Young Hegelians," of whom Marx was a member, were most significantly influenced by the empiricism of Hegel. They believed in the idea that only what is rational is real. This was a profoundly antireligious interpretation. Indeed, the Young Hegelians believed that the old ideas surrounding the Myths of the Church were doomed to eventually pass way. 64. Karl Marx, "Capital, Volume One," in The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed., ed. Robert C. Thicker (New York: Norton, 1978), 301. 65. Chamberlain, 16. 66. Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity [1841], translated from the German by George Eliot (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), xxxiv. 67. Chamberlain, 35. 68. Feuerbach, 2-3,12. 69. Ibid., 30. 70. Ibid., 270. 71. Karl Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach, Part IV," in The Marx-Engels Reader, 144. 72. Karl Marx, "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right," in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels on Religion (New York: Schocken Books, 1964), 41-42. 73. Ibid., 57-58. The use of italics was by Marx. 74. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "Manifesto of the Communist Party" in The Marx-Engels Reader, 491. 75. Karl Marx, "Critique of the Gotha Program," in The Marx-Engels Reader, 531. 76. Karl Marx, 'The German Ideology: Part I," in The Marx-Engels Reader, 160.

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77. Shlomo Avineri, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), 251. 78. In the late 1970s, the Gallup organization conducted research that compared the religious beliefs of Americans to those in other nations. Religious beliefs were lower in Western advanced industrial democracies, with the exception of the United States, than, generally, most other nations of the world. This is demonstrated by the wide variance in the percentage responding to the question as to whether religion is "very important" in one's life: America—58 percent; Italy—36 percent; the Benelux countries—26 percent; United Kingdom—23 percent; France—22 percent; West Germany—17 percent; and Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, and, Sweden)—17 percent. See George Gallup, "Religions at Home and Abroad," Public Opinion, March-May 1979, 38-39, cited in Barry A. Kosmin and Seymour P. Lachman, One Nation under God: Religion in Contemporary American Society (New York: Harmony Books, 1993), 9. 79. Michael Barkun, Crucible of the Millennium (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986), 17. 80.Talmon, 12. 81. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 60. 82. Eric J. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels. 83. Anthony F C. Wallace, "Revitalization Movements," American Anthropologist 58 (1956): 626. 84. Chiliast is simply a synonym for millenarian. Its root is found in the Greek chilias meaning "thousand." 85. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 16. 86. Cf. Barkun, Disaster and the Millennium, 4. In laying out the structure of his text, he asserts, "I have not pursued the question whether these [millenarian] movements are religious or political. It seems to me obvious that they are both." 87. For a political perspective of Jesus Christ and the early Christian movement, see chapter 4, 'The King of Kings," in Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985) and Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos, 194-211. For an overview of the revolutionary origins of Islam, see Choueiri, 15-20. 88. Kenelm Burridge, "Millennialisms and the Recreation of History," in Rebellion, and Revolution, ed. Bruce Lincoln (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985), 219. 89. Cohn, Revolutionary Messianism in Medieval and Reformation Europe, 309-311. 90. The most comprehensive study of the relationship between social catastrophe and millenarianism is Barkun, Disaster and the Millennium, see especially, 34-61. 91. Ibid., 34. See also Lewy, 247-48. 92. Barkun, Disaster and the Millennium, 34. 93. Lanternari. See also Adas. 94. Lanternari, 243. 95. Anthony F. C. Wallace, "Mazeway Disintegration: The Individual's Perception of Socio-Cultural Disorganization," Human Organization 16 (Summer 1957): 23-27. 96. Lewy, 247.

2 Imperialism and Upheaval: China, Mexico, and Iran

D

uring the late nineteenth century, scientific research and technological development accelerated rapidly within the industrialized nations of the West. The "second" industrial revolution was in full swing and, in many industries, the development of new, more advanced products was occurring at a rapid pace. Massive improvements were achieved in communications and mechanization of production as well as in the manufacture of specialty chemicals, high-quality steel, electric power, oil, gas, and other petroleum derivatives. In addition, new inventions, such as the internal combustion engine and the steam turbine, were coming into their own and beginning to have a profound effect on further new developments that would follow in the new century: the mechanization of labor processes, the automobile, the airplane, and others. These increases in technological development, in turn, led to sharp increases in industrial capacity, output, and productivity.1 Indeed, the prolific might of the advanced modern industrial state seemed, to many, to be limitless. Yet these dramatic improvements, particularly in the mass production of products, led to new problems for modern corporations. For example, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, labor costs began to rise. In addition, new sources of raw materials were needed for sustained growth. Finally, new markets of consumers were also required, as outlets for what was a growing surplus of goods. Eventually, this massive need for new raw materials and new consumers converged to activate an extraordinary and potentially dangerous competition among all of the major powers in the world—a competition not only for colonial territories but also for political and economic influence around the globe. The modern multinational industrial corporation was emerging as an important influence on international affairs during this period. These new financial and

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industrial giants sought access, with the assistance of their national governments, to the populations and resources of the less developed countries in order to meet the needs created by their high levels of investment and production. Markets were no longer looked upon as regional or national. To compete, it was widely believed, an economic enterprise had to be fully global in its perspective.2 As a result, the last three decades of the nineteenth century saw the emergence of a new era of competitive imperialism. Each of the great powers sought to extend its influence over new areas, to acquire new markets for manufactured goods and as sources of raw materials, and to reap healthy returns on available investment capital. As a result of this competition, by the turn of the century, Britain, France, and Germany were competitive in both Africa and Asia. Japan defeated China in 1895 and Russia in 1905, and as a result, acquired new territories. The United States defeated Spain in 1898 and acquired the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and other territories, while at the same time rapidly expanding its economic interests in Mexico and other Latin American states.3 China, Mexico, and Iran were particularly vulnerable to this international competition among the industrialized states, for a variety of reasons. First, all three were economically and socially decentralized, prenational, agrarian societies in which villagers and tribespeople enjoyed a rather considerable local autonomy. The peasantry in each of these societies had created well-defined social systems that had developed over the centuries largely insulated from the outside world. This insular position made them particularly vulnerable to the rapid social changes that inevitably accompanied late-nineteenth-century Western imperialism. China, for example, had enjoyed a well-defined and cohesive culture that reached back thousands of years. At the core of this culture was the traditional family unit, which served as the primary social entity and the centerpiece of sociopolitical activity and consciousness. The family served as the most important institution for political socialization in China. It prepared all people for the necessary hierarchy and status surrounding the political institutions of China.4 An important benefit of such a system was a clear understanding of one's own identity; every person knew where he or she stood in the family and in society as a whole.5 Local Chinese communities retained a stable social structure that had remained virtually unchanged for centuries. The great landowners, their middle-size counterparts, and town merchants dominated the countryside and the peasantry. Village structures remained quite strong because nearly half of the peasants were still able to get by working their own land and sustaining an effective native handicraft production system.6 In a similar way, the native peoples that lived in Mexico were often able to keep control of local town governments. Despite the fact that most of the Indian communities had been organized on the model of the Spanish cabildo (town council) system during the colonial era, native chiefs were able to maintain most of their precolonial authority. Indian communities were able to sustain both the vitality of their traditional social institutions and a great amount of local autonomy.

Imperialism and Upheaval

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The Spanish colonial administrators never sought to intervene in local ruling tribal traditions and never attempted to dispossess native elites of their power. As a result, Indian elites continued to govern their own communities in their traditional way. Although the Mexican Indians suffered socioeconomic and demographic disaster as a result of their Spanish colonial experience, "their pre-Hispanic social traditions, values, and customs remained a significant force underlying all but a few cabildo functions into the late decades of the nineteenth century."7 The nomadic tribes that made up most of the population of rural Iran enjoyed a largely autonomous social system throughout the traditional period primarily because it was extremely difficult for any government to bring such a diffuse group under effective political control. Iran's "mountainous and arid terrain, combined with a lack of good communications, and the absence of navigable rivers"8 made the peasants politically independent into the early nineteenth century. This deeply entrenched autonomy fostered a traditional way of life in all three societies, which made foreign intervention all the more difficult and disruptive when it ultimately came about. A second important source of vulnerability to foreign intervention was the fact that all three societies possessed vast amounts of natural resources9 and, particularly in the case of China, a large domestic population that represented potential new customers for Western products. Third, each state was located in a strategically important geographic position: China, as the dominant state on the East Asia land mass; Iran, on the southern frontier of the Russian empire and an important link in the route between Europe, India, and Southeast Asia; and Mexico, on the southern border of the United States. As a result of these factors, China, Mexico, and Iran, beginning in the nineteenth century, underwent: (1) growing foreign economic intervention and sociopolitical influence which became increasingly harmful; (2) a humiliating subordination to foreign governments; (3) the development of cooperative working partnerships between the ruling government at home and international entrepreneurs, a partnership that largely excluded business elites in the host market; and (4) the social, political, cultural, and economic dislocation of large numbers of the local peasant and working classes.10 THE IMPACT OF IMPERIALISM IN CHINA, MEXICO, AND IRAN The intrusive process of foreign imperialism became a catastrophic experience for the peoples of China, Mexico, and Iran in the twentieth century in many important ways. First, foreign intrusion left the peoples of these three societies both bitter and humiliated; bitter over the increasingly foreign control of their lives and humiliated by their seeming inability to do anything about it. It is important to understand that the peoples of China, Indian Mexico, and Iran all possessed a profound historical consciousness that manifested itself in a deep

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ethnocentric belief in the superiority of their culture over that of outsiders. The Chinese had long believed themselves to be more intelligent, more cultured, and more capable than other people on earth, and looked upon any foreigners, whether they were inner-Asian Mongol invaders or Western Europeans, as barbarians.11 From ancient times, an important source of China's culture had been a devotion to the superiority of the Chinese way of life.12 In Mexico, the Indians' sense of superiority over foreigners also traces its origins to ancient times. The great Mayan civilization, for example, exhibited a profound xenophobia and deep ethnocentrism. Not surprisingly, the Indian looked with displeasure at Western invaders from the very beginning of intercultural contact, even before the Indians came to understand that the Spanish had arrived in their lands to subjugate their culture and strip them of their wealth.13 Shi'ite Iranians generally perceive of all nonbelievers as morally and spiritually inferior to themselves. They believe they must assume responsibility for the sustaining and the spreading of God's law, a law that represents, to many Shi'as, the ultimate truth and operates as their personal guide to personal ethics and spirituality.14 The pervasive ethnocentric beliefs among the peoples of these three societies exacerbated the hostile and bitter reaction to foreign intrusion into their cultural and economic life. It is, most likely, impossible to determine if the ethnocentric nature of these societies predated, and thus somehow influenced, their millennial doctrines or if their ancient millenarian beliefs engendered ethnocentrism. Nonetheless, it is clear that the two characteristics are not only compatible, but complementary. The idea of God's chosen people is inherently ethnocentric. Its power serves to reinforce the notion that one's family, clan, tribe, and indeed, entire society, and their ancillary values, beliefs, customs, and way of life have received the promise of God's salvation and possesses some divine position and/or superiority over other foreign, alien peoples. Under such influence, the importance of protecting and defending these institutions becomes a sacred responsibility. Two sources of extreme social stress engendered by Western imperialism had an important impact on China, Mexico, and Iran: the perceived corruption of ancient and sacred cultural value systems and severe economic dislocation. THE IMPACT OF WESTERN IMPERIALISM: CULTURAL CORRUPTION In the presence of a foreign threat, three factors converged that engendered a profound sense of humiliation in these three societies. First, it was clear that the foreign powers that threatened intervention in China possessed far more powerful military capabilities. Second was the unmistakable fact of the foreigner's advanced technological knowledge and skills; not only at making war, but in the development of a progressive industrial society. Third, since many people in these societies associated education, knowledge, and skill with more basic moral and intellectual


45

qualities, it was becoming clear that their more traditional societies were somehow deficient in these abilities as well.15 The "crisis and humiliation" engendered by these factors led many to conclude that the country must abandon traditionalism and make significant social and political change. Indeed, by the late nineteenth century, many Chinese perceived that something in their country was "fundamentally wrong."16 Most condemned the Manchu dynasty and "soon the Confucian system itself for China's apparent powerlessness to act in the face of a foreign menace combined with national disintegration.17 Foreign intervention in China in the nineteenth century created profound social disruption, a sense of moral decay, and a collective psychological demoralization. It represented a "complete and appalling disaster for the Chinese people." The advent of Christian missions, Western education, and foreign investment was destructive of China's contemporary well-being. In short, China's entire way of life was perceived to be at stake.18 Indeed, many Chinese, at the turn of the century, came to believe that continued foreign aggression would eventually lead to the partition of their country by foreign powers.19 As a result, the last decade of the nineteenth century represented a major turning point in Chinese history. The concept of nationalism became an increasingly important mobilizing theme to the Chinese people. Indeed, nationalism became a catalyst for change in three important areas of China's future well-being: "the rollback of imperialism; the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty; and the creation of a modern centralized state."20 Foreign ideas regarding communal lands—the centerpiece of peasant society— were an important source of conflict and stress. Land had been traditionally viewed, in Indian Mexico and rural China, for example, as communal property to be guaranteed by and handed down from generation to generation. When Western agents forcefully and abruptly perverted this view by treating land as a "commodity to be bought and sold," the traditional economic and socioreligious systems, along with the ability of the peasantry to remain self-sufficient, were upset.21 To Mexican Indians, communal lands represented more than simply a means to grow food and provide for their economic well-being. These lands were the foundation of village life. It was from the soil that life, both physically and spiritually, originated.22 In Mexico, the anti-Indian policies implemented by the Cientificos,23 who had developed an important partnership with foreign entrepreneurs designed to speed the economic development of Mexico, sought nothing less than the obliteration of the Indian population and its culture. This was necessary, they believed, in order to achieve Mexican industrialization and to reach the status of a "white-governed, modern world power."24 Throughout the Porfirata, foreign commercial development not only of industry but of agricultural enterprises expanded rapidly. The large haciendas grew by absorbing large areas of land along with the attached peasant villages. In 1810, for example, about one-fourth of the rural population of colonial Mexico lived on commercial haciendas, and about one-third of all peasants worked part of each year for the hacendado. These people were primarily residents of pueblos with plots of

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land too small to produce a commercial crop. In contrast, by 1910, large, commercial haciendas had expanded to include 81 percent of all local communities in Mexico. Altogether, some 57,000 communities lived within this massive hacienda system, while fewer that 13,000 remained independent.26 Peasant villagers and their leadership consistently resisted the onslaught of the agricultural entrepreneurs. Clinging to their ancient customs and communal traditions and consistently resisting what was perceived as a corruption of their way of life, they sought legal protection through the invocation of Spanish colonial land deeds, which they perceived as sacred.27 The impact of commercial development and modern technology on traditional life often provoked violent reactions in these societies. In the 1880s, Chinese workers living in the rural areas near Canton destroyed new machinery installed for the spinning and weaving of silk in episodes much akin to the Luddite "machine breakers" of Western Europe in the early industrial era.28 In 1877, in an earlier yet similar example, the new railway constructed between Wu-sung and Shanghai was destroyed by local farmers because it was believed that it would "disturb the tombs in the fields, and violate the laws of geomancy (feng-shui)."29 In addition, there were reports of many cases of "factory smashing" in Chinese urban areas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.30 Following World War II, social and political problems in Iran intensified, largely as a result of increasing foreign interference. Soviet troops, which had occupied Azerbaijani and Kurdish territories in northern Iran throughout the war, refused to leave and were influential in encouraging radical leftist movements in the region. In December 1945, a Kurdish autonomous republic was set up, and although its leadership was noncommunist, it was supported by the Soviets, who kept the Iranian government from sending in troops to suppress the new state. It was only after the intervention of the United Nations Security Council, with the encouragement and influence of the United States, that a negotiated agreement was reached that allowed for the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1946.31 In the post-World War II period, two distinct cultures began to emerge in Iran, largely as a result of Western intrusion. The upper class became increasingly secular and Westernized, fully embracing the modern lifestyle, while becoming increasingly detached from the traditional and religious-dominated culture of the lower peasant and urban bazaar (merchant) classes. The lower classes tended to retain their traditional values and culture, and largely associated "the way things should be" more with Islam than with the West.32 By the 1970s, many lower-class Iranians "had become disillusioned and outraged by what they perceived as major features of Western culture" coming to violate and corrupt entrenched, Islamic-inspired, traditional norms and values.33 In contrast to Mexico and China, where conflicts often emerged in response to early industrialization and foreign intervention, a sense of corrupt foreign influence emerged in Iran over more explicitly religious and moral issues. By the 1960s and 1970s, the Shah's policy of promoting a secular Iranian state in an effort to build a modern, Western-styled society offered a sharp contrast to the laws of Islam. This


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contrast set up a dangerous battleground between the government and the ulama. To fiilly grasp the serious nature of this conflict, it is important to understand that in its fundamentalist Shi' a interpretation, Islam not only dominates the spiritual life of the individual and the community, but encompasses all aspects of life. The idea of a secular state is perceived to be contrary to the laws of God.34 Among all of the events leading up to the Iranian Revolution in the 1970s, perhaps the most significant centered around the Shah's desire to broaden his power over culture and society, a realm traditionally dominated by religious institutions. As a result, he sought to completely control, or at the very least to neutralize, the significant power of the ulama. For example, he replaced traditional clerical courts with secular state courts. In addition, he declared that Islamic law was now subordinate to modern secular laws. He stopped religious shrines from continuing to perform their traditional function as a sanctuary for political dissidents. Finally, he "opened up some of the large mosques to foreign tourists." The combination of these policies provoked a profound moral indignation among many Iranians.35 The religious leaders of Iran perceived these measures as a bid to liquidate the institution of religion, annihilate Shi'ism altogether, and introduce into Iranian society the corrupting influence of Western customs and values. By 1979, "many had become disillusioned with what they conceived as major features of the West penetrating and corrupting their culture."36 The Westernization of cultural and social norms—"fashion, literature, gender roles, the emphasis on materialism"— were seen by many Iranians as "paving the road for a further absorption of Iran into the Western sphere of influence and domination."37 Westernization was feared "as something that tore people away from their family roots and, at the same time, increased the wealth of the rich at the expense of the poor."38 The effort by the Shah to Westernize Iran endangered the self-esteem of the Iranian people and engendered massive indignation. "The behavior of the Shah increasingly came to be experienced as an insult—a narcissistic injury to his own people He showed the Iranian people no compassion and no empathy."39 In response, criticism of the Shah's government was increasingly caustic and vociferous. Indeed, the rapid program of secularization and Westernization of Iranian society enforced, at times brutally, by the Shah alienated large sections of the community. On the one hand, there were the "traditional" classes, such as the peasants, the clergy, and the bazaar merchants, who held on to to their traditional Islamic ways largely because of the functional role that it performed in their lives. They concluded that they were gaining nothing from the social and economic policies of the regime. On the other side of the social spectrum there were the young students and intellectuals who, often brought up in traditional religious homes, were then educated to believe in Western-inspired ideals and values (such as human rights, civil liberties, and some degree of distributive justice), which the Shah's government did not live up to in practice. As a result many members of these groups were disillusioned by the idea of Westernization. They felt themselves to be trapped in a cultural vise between the aspirations of modernization and the power of their

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traditional religious beliefs. A clearly defined Iranian cultural identity had been lost, and the students and intellectuals were perhaps its greatest victims. Finally, there were large numbers of poor urban migrants who had come to the metropolitan areas of Iran in search of work, particularly after the oil boom that began in 1974.40 This "urban proletariat was largely unable to identity with government policies, and increasingly looked to the local clergy for guidance and leadership."41 THE IMPACT OF WESTERN IMPERIALISM: ECONOMIC DISRUPTION AND DISLOCATION A second source of extreme social stress in China, Mexico, and Iran resulting from the impact of Western imperialism was severe economic disruption and dislocation. The imperial government was successful in limiting foreign economic activity in China in the early years of the nineteenth century. This regulation ended when Britain gained special trade concessions through victory in the Opium War of 1839-1842. As a result, by the late 1840s the British had established extensive areas of economic interest both along the Pacific coast of China and into the hinterlands of Canton Province.42 After the British, other great powers such as France and, later, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Japan, each eager to make a claim to their "share" of what seemed to be a new colonial region, established trading centers in the coastal trading ports of China. These powers not only forced economic concessions by the imperial government, but also took direct control of significant portions of the Chinese empire as colonies of their own; Korea was seized by Japan, Indochina by France, and parts of Manchuria and Mongolia by the Russians.43 The treaty ports possessed their own autonomous police and military power and independent political jurisdictions, while "foreign warships patrolled the inland waterways and Christian missionaries proselytized a cultural ideology and value system that challenged traditional Chinese beliefs."44 'The opening up of the treaty ports made China essentially a satellite of the industrial world."45 Not surprisingly, it was within the port areas that early industrial development was concentrated. The treaty ports, in reality, became foreign colonies on the Chinese mainland. "Not only were foreigners subject solely to their own laws, and hence free of the restrictions of Chinese law, but the Chinese who conducted business with foreigners in these areas were also subject to Western law and no longer protected by their domestic legal system."46 As a direct result of this massive foreign economic and political intrusion, the Manchu dynasty, which had ruled China since the seventeenth century, lost strength from the 1840s until the end of the century. In fact, the Opium War's effect was only the first significant episode in a series of disastrous failures by the imperial government. The British successfully exacted war reparations, which dried up the imperial treasury and exacerbated the already weak ability of the Chinese to defend themselves. By the turn of the twentieth century, foreign debt and war indemnities


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imposed by the great powers gradually drove the Imperial government toward bankruptcy and foreign financial control. The total British demand under the Boxer indemnities alone amounted to almost 7.6 million pounds. By the end of 1910, the amount of principal repaid by the Chinese had been less than 150,000 pounds, with the rest of the payments going to service only the interest.47 It was becoming increasingly clear that China had reached a critical stage in her financial health, where most of the funds available to the government were used to service debts resulting from previous wars, loans, and indemnities.48 Perhaps not surprisingly, the Chinese defaulted on their indemnity payments in October 1911. As a result, "the foreign economic stranglehold on her grew even tighter." Foreign bankers, in consultation with policy makers within their home governments, came to the conclusion that it was most likely in their best interest to take over key segments of the Chinese government in an attempt to secure their loans.49 Foreign economic and financial intrusion went deep into Chinese society and humiliated the Chinese people. Concurrently, these intrusions displayed the powerlessness of the Manchus to control events within the country, and eventually called into question both their legitimacy and their ability to sustain the dynasty.50 In addition to foreign industrial and financial disruption of Chinese society in and around the treaty ports, massive efforts to commercialize the agricultural sector of the Chinese society by foreign investors and business interests severely weakened the sociopolitical structure of Chinese rural society. "Foreign investment, rather than being a dynamic process of internal domestic growth and development for the Chinese economy, was instead responsible for the growth of a commercial agricultural system which was largely export oriented. Increased tea, opium, silk, hemp, jute, flax, and cotton production caused agricultural exports to soar while industrial and dry goods imports grew even more rapidly, causing a severe imbalance of trade between China and the Western powers." This emphasis on the export of Chinese agricultural products ultimately led to deleterious social consequences and the maintenance of a massive, low-income-earning, rural peasant class in China.51 By the turn of the century, the rising cost of capital around the world compounded the imperial government's financial problems. In 1902-1903 and again in 1907-1908, China suffered a serious fiscal crisis in the wake of a worldwide economic depression characterized by bank failures in the United States. The international crisis virtually stopped the flow of foreign investments and loans to China (and most other parts of the world). Domestic banks could not assist businesses or make loans to the Chinese government. As a result, the Chinese economy went into a depression, and many elite groups suffered economic disaster. This undermined their loyalty to the imperial government. Indeed provincial and class loyalties coalesced into demands for a strong, central republican form of government. "In effect, most of the old order had been replaced by macro-political-economic processes before the revolution brought down the political facade."52 Foreign intervention in China in the nineteenth century created profound social disruption and psychological demoralization. As a result, the traditional Chinese social order and the Confucian system were doomed. Weakened by foreign eco-

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nomic exploitation and increasinglyfragmentedinto regional power blocs controlled by local political elites and the military, the Chinese empire collapsed in 1911 and gave way to a largely disordered and divided republican system that was forced to accept foreign economic domination as the price of social stability. The political stability of the regime of General Porfirio Diaz, who came to power in Mexico in 1876, was particularly appealing to American financial and industrial interests. "Long enthralled by the economic potential of their neighbor to the south, they had nevertheless been reluctant to invest in a society wracked by internal conflict and political instability."53 Mexico, which shared a long common border with the United States, offered nearby inexpensive labor. In addition, its vast mineral wealth in the North and its petroleum and sugar production in the South appealed to U.S. money interests thirsty for new areas for investment. During the Porfirian era, Mexico experienced a significant increase in foreign, particularly American, political influence and economic control. As a result, by 1900, fully one half of all U.S. foreign investments were in Mexico. Large amounts of American capital merged with important British, French, German, and other Western investments in Mexico. In this way, by the early twentieth century, industrial production, the transportation system, communications, and natural resources were dominated by foreign commercial interests.54 An outgrowth of this massive foreign investment in Mexico in the last quarter of the nineteenth century was the fact that its sociopolitical life became increasingly subjected to recurring foreign economic and financial contractions that originated in the banking centers of New York, Paris, and London. Between 1899 and 1910, these cycles came to be particularly harsh and, as a result, seriously enervated Mexico's well-being. As a result, Mexico, during the last ten years of the Porfirista regime, entered a period of deep economic crisis.55 For example, the worldwide financial crisis of 1907, much as it had been in China, was particularly disastrous in Mexico. In a panic, U.S. and, subsequently, Mexican banks were forced to call in loans and tighten credit. "Copper and silver prices fell to ruinous levels. Unemployed miners in the states of Oaxaca, Hidalgo, Durango, Sonora, and Chihuahua were soon roaming village streets in desperation." Indeed, all levels of Mexican society, from the wealthy to the peasants, felt the impact of this worldwide economic depression.56During this period, "displaced peasants and unemployed workers faced deprivation, while the nationalistic petty bourgeoisie and most regional elites saw their economic opportunities increasingly limited and their federalist-democratic principles undermined by a government unwilling to stem foreign economic domination."57 By 1900, the Porfirista regime had centralized political authority in Mexico to a higher degree than at anytime in the republic's history. Concurrently, the government increased ties with foreign, particularly American, capitalists. Governmentsponsored foreign commercial intervention into Mexican provincial society reached a new high. By 1910, for example, real estate holdings by American


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investors in Mexico totaled over 100 million acres and included most of the country's "valuable mining, agricultural, and timber properties."58 Nowhere was the clash between traditional society and the forces of economic intrusion felt more severely than in the south-central Mexican state of Morelos. Unlike most of the northern states, Morelos possessed a homogeneous population consisting primarily of native Nahua Indians. "Over 20 per cent of [its] rural population in 1910 still spoke only Nahuatl and even more were bilingual." In contrast to the nation's thinly distributed rural population, Morelos was the most densely populated peasant area in Mexico, and its vigorous Indian village society was concentrated within one of the most developed commercial agricultural areas. The most important economic activity of the state was the production of sugar.59 Thirty-eight wealthy and largely absentee families controlled the sugar mills and plantations of Morelos. During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, these families greatly increased their land holdings. In 1888, for example, the owner of the El Hospital, one of the largest sugar haciendas in the region, seized peasant communal "properties to the east and north of its principal acreage; lands that were regarded by the villagers of Yautepec, Ayala, and the pueblo of Anenecuilco as their own."60 By 1910, the haciendas controlled almost 98 percent of the arable land in Morelos, and many of the pueblos literally faced the prospect of extinction.61 The issue was a simple one; without land to farm, the villagers could not support themselves. They would have to split up and move elsewhere. If this were to happen, it would result in the complete demise of traditional native societies in many regions.62 The origin of much of the conflict between Mexican Indian peasants and commercial landowners may be traced to the early postindependence period. The "Anti-Clerical" Laws of 1828-1829 and the Reform Laws of 1856-1857 had initiated a major change in the ownership of agricultural land in Mexico. These laws were originally aimed primarily at the Church landholdings, which were significant by the midnineteenth century. The ostensible objective of the laws was to create and promote a viable rural middle class in Mexico. Nonetheless, they had the opposite effect; the laws further polarized Mexican society by expanding the size of the wealthy landed elites and thus further concentrating economic power in the hands of a few.63 These laws, in reality, made the acquisition of lands by the commercially minded landowners much easier. In a similar way, the communal lands held by Indian collectives were broken up into individual holdings in an effort to stimulate the growth of family farming. This effort also backfired. Often out of financial necessity, many Indians quickly forfeited their lands to third parties. Virtually all of these formerly communal lands went into the hands of the large haciendas and foreign-controlled commercial land companies, generally at prices significantly below market value. Additionally, communal lands that appeared to be unoccupied or lacking a clear title of ownership were often seized outright by the government.64 In most circumstances, these "unoccupied" lands were, in reality, Indian communal property.

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Mexican agricultural land tenure was transformed during the Porfirista period, largely as a result of the rapid growth of agricultural exports and the penetration of the domestic economy by foreign capital. The Mexican government subdued previously semiautonomous Indian societies—such as the Yaqui in Sonora, Mayo in Sinaloa, and Maya in Campeche, Chiapas, and Yucatan. Technological advances such as the railroad and modern weapons, particularly the gatling gun, made such conquests possible in the more remote areas. After seizing Indian lands, the government then converted them to commercial use. In this way between 1889 and 1910, over one-fifth of the lands comprising the Republic of Mexico was transferred to new owners, and agricultural land became increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. It has been estimated that by the end of the Diaz period in 1910 there were 8,245 haciendas in Mexico65 compared to 5,869 at the beginning of the Porfirata in 1877—a 40 per cent jump.66 Three hundred of them contained at least 10,000 hectares; 116, around 25,000; 51 possessed approximately 30,000 hectares each; and 11 exceeded 100,000 hectares.67 In addition to land concentration in the agricultural sector, the policies of the Diaz government opened up vast tracts of communal properties for colonization by American settlers, and for mining and other commercial development uses. In the 1880s, over seven thousand American settlers moved into the northern tier of Mexican states along the border of the southwestern United States. The lands they settled had been seized as "public" lands by the Mexican government and, in turn, sold to commercial developers at inexpensive prices. Nevertheless, these lands were considered by native peasants in these areas to be Indian lands. One of the largest sales of these lands was made to the Richardson Construction Company of Los Angeles, California. The 993,650 acres Richardson acquired in the Yaqui River valley was a sizable portion of traditional Yaqui tribal holdings that the Indians regarded "as their national homeland."68 In addition to real estate developers, large American mining interests, such as American Smelting and Refining Company and Phelps Dodge, and large investors, such as William Greene, Edwin Marshall, the Los Angeles Times Company, William Randolph Hearst, the Cargill family, Edward Doheny, and the Texas Oil Company, joined with other U.S. business interests and "benefited in the acquisition of inexpensive lands" in Mexico "totalling over 100 million acres," or more than 22 percent of her land surface.69 Additionally, the sale of these lands by American development companies to over fifteen thousand settlers, beginning on a large scale after the turn of the century, displaced peasants from "Chiapas to Chihuahua."70 Throughout the nineteenth century, Iran was caught up in the turmoil between Russia and Great Britain over the issue of hegemony in the Middle East. Indeed, Iran often became the battleground of this conflict, and frequently the two great powers imposed upon her swift and degrading military defeats and burdensome economic treaties. In 1857, for example, a series of British assaults launched from India forced a resistant Iranian government to concede special nation trading rights and exceptional legal status, more favorable than those available to Iranian nationals, to British companies. In 1869, the Suez Canal opened, significantly reducing


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the time and difficulty of travel between Western Europe and Iran. By the 1890s, increasing foreign control over the economy created alarm among provincial elites, merchants, religious leaders, nationalists, artisans, and peasants. By the end of the century, European businesses were paying the Shahs for concessions to various resources and commercial markets in Iran. The most controversial of these concessions was the establishment of a monopoly over the production, sale, and export of all Iranian tobacco, which was granted to a British firm in 1890.71 A series of Islamic reform efforts, which began in the late nineteenth century and carried into the first decade of the twentieth century, clearly articulated Iran's weaknesses when compared to the West. The country's "growing interaction with the West hastened socioeconomic change producing both new problems and new possibilities of development." During this period, the primary consideration of most Iranian elites, particularly the Constitutionalists, came to be "catching up with the West."72 In 1906, the Qajar Shah Muzaffar Ad-din, agreeing to demands by reformers, granted Iran a constitution that called for a national assembly (the majles) and a constitutional-monarchy system of government.73Nonetheless, many Shi'ite clerics saw constitutionalism as a threat to Islamic law. As a result, by the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the short-lived alliance between secular and ulama political forces was dead.74 In 1918, following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the British government sought to protect its political and economic hegemony over the southwest Asian region. That year it occupied Iran and, in 1921, supported the overthrow of the Qajar dynasty by Colonel Reza Khan.75 Largely as a result of the ulama's vocal opposition to the principles of constitutionalism, and his own desire for absolute power, Reza Khan largely ignored the Iranian Constitution. He needed the support of the ulama to support the legitimacy of his new Pahlavi Dynasty after he had himself proclaimed Shah in 1925.76 His support of Shi'a as the state religion successfully achieved his goal of reestablishing a political alliance between the ulama and the monarchy. As a direct result, any potential revolution was successfully avoided in the 1920s and 1930s.77 The most important crisis faced by Iranians in the post-World War II period centered around political and economic control of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), the oil monopoly in Iran managed by the British. By the time the war had ended, the Iranian people had a number of specific complaints about the arrangement between their country and the AIOC. Indeed, British neglect of these complaints during the war had exacerbated the situation. There was serious discontent in Iran about the specific financial arrangements surrounding the distribution of AIOC profits. The royalty system had been originally negotiated in 1933. As oil prices and profits increased sharply during the war years, the relative share that actually ended up in the hands of the Iranian government had declined.78 Indeed, by the end of the war, the AIOC, in fact, distributed a greater share of its revenues to the British Treasury in the form of taxes than it did to the Iranian government in royalties! In addition, a source of conflict involved the active participation in the management of the AIOC by Iranian nationals. Because

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British executives had literally built the corporation from the ground up, they possessed a particularly parochial attitude toward the company's operation and sought to control all aspects of its day-to-day operations. This infuriated the Iranians, who wanted some oversight authority, particularly in respect to regular financial reports. They also sought to play a greater role in the making of corporate policy and hiring practices.79 In 1949, in a rather feeble attempt to ameliorate the situation, the AIOC offered a series of new provisions to the original 1933 agreement, following months of negotiations with the Iranian government. Although these agreements were accepted, they did not meet the expectations of the majority of Iranians, who remained frustrated over what they perceived as British dominance over the economic institutions of their state. As a result, the Iranian premier, General Ali Razmara, although he supported the new provisions, held up any attempt at ratification by the Iranian parliament. Indeed, his support of the provisions probably led to his assassination in March 1951 by a Shi' a nationalist member of the Feda' iy an-e Islam group.80 Public opposition to the new provisions were so salient that the Iranian parliament, through a coalition of secular and religious nationalist parties known as the National Front, elected a reformer, Mohammed Musaddiq, as premier, to replace Razmara.81 Perceived by many Westerners as a socialist, particularly after he pushed the nationalization of the AIOC through the Iranian parliament in 1951, Musaddiq eventually was opposed by the ulama, principally on the basis of his domestic policies.82 In 1953, Musaddiq was ousted by an American CIA-supported coup d'etat that reclaimed full political power for Muhammed Reza Shah.83 Nonetheless, Musaddiq's ardent defense of Iran's independence from foreign influence symbolized by his defiance of the AIOC, combined with his wide popularity, helped to make him an enduring national hero. Various dissident groups—"Marxists, leftists, liberals, and rightists, both secular and religious"—throughout the Shah's reign in the 1960s and 1970s made successful use of the symbol of Musaddiq to support their political positions.84 Mussadiq's unique expression of Iranian nationalism sought to liberate the nation from the chains of Western imperialism. His ideas remained a powerful political force in the country long after the collapse of his government. Their power and appeal can perhaps best be measured by the diversity of political groups that they have come to influence—the "bourgeois National Front, secularists, and socialists."85 The overthrow of the Musaddiq government, largely as a result of the assistance of foreign agents, exemplifies a problem that continued throughout most of the first half of the twentieth century in Iran—foreign dominance of the political development process. Beginning in the first decade of the century, through significant British military, political, and economic involvement in the 1920s and 1930s and virtually total control of the administration of the government apparatus by the British and the United States during and after World War II, Iranian nationalism


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and the clear desire of Iranians to run their own affairs and detach themselves from Western influence were continually frustrated. These events and their results stand in contrast to those who argue that the massive efforts of the Shah to Westernize Iran in the 1970s did not contribute to the onset of revolution because such a process had actually begun in the early 1920s, and continued throughout the first half of the century.86 It is true that the process of Westernization had been attempted much earlier by the Shah's father. However, from the beginning (even during the constitutional revolution during the Qajar era), efforts to Westernize Iran had been regularly opposed by conservatives (particularly many members of the ulama), who were, nonetheless, effectively repressed in their dissent. Indeed, repression, whether by the Pahlavi dynasty or foreign powers, of local dissent was successful and became an effective means of preventing rebellion and revolutionary change. The fact that a revolution did not take place in the 1920s and 1930s or later in the late 1950s or throughout the 1960s is more attributable to the powerful state system of repression created by the Pahlavis. Nonetheless (as we have learned most recently in the cases of the former Soviet Union and many of its client states in eastern Europe), repression cannot be sustained indefinitely. Once the door of freedom is opened ever so slightly, formerly repressive regimes cannot predict the consequences. The Shah's vacillation, combined with the apparent weakening of his support by foreign patron states (particularly the United States) opened the door for Iranian dissidents in the 1970s in a way that had never occurred in the twentieth century. The result was a revolution that had been a long time in the making. An important goal of the Shah, following the 1953 coup, was the rapid expansion of both the Iranian economy and his armed forces. Over the next quarter century, he built both of these into the largest in the Middle East.87 Like his father, he did not allow the Iranian Constitution to stand in the way of his political power and virtually ignored its provisions. Indeed, he was convinced that his power to govern Iran was "virtually absolute."88 By the early 1970s the policies of the Shah were creating increasing discontent and social stress in Iran. Much of this discontent was specifically grounded in the Shah's efforts to modernize and Westernize Iranian society.89 In contrast to the Chinese and Mexican cases, foreign financial investment in Iran was much smaller than was the import of foreign goods purchased with the rapid rise in oil income beginning in the 1970s. The Shah bought billions of dollars of the latest aircraft and weapons. In an attempt to rapidly industrialize the Iranian economy, he ordered the latest in hightechnology equipment. In order to operate and maintain his highly advanced machinery and equipment, foreign trained technicians were needed. As a result, by the early 1970s, high-paid foreigners began arriving in Iran in very large numbers.90 The efforts on the part of the Shah's government to modernize Iran, build an advanced infrastructure, and accelerate economic development led directly to a serious inflationary pressure in the country. During the 1960s and early 1970s,

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Iran's inflation rate had been low. However, by 1973 it jumped to levels in excess of 35 percent annually. This led to distress among the newly emerging middle class, "which was just beginning to insist on more participation in the growing Iranian economy and now saw their opportunities slipping away."91 The cost of housing and other basic services shot up. Much of this inflation and the recurring shortages of goods and services were blamed directly on the presence of increasing numbers of foreign workers.92 In addition to inflation, beginning in the mid-1970s a serious income distribution problem was emerging in Iran. An important study conducted at that time indicates that income inequality was increasing significantly between both the top and the bottom 10 percent of society and between urban and rural populations.93 This income gap was primarily the result of spectacular increases in oil income, which was of much greater benefit to the wealthy classes than to the poor.94 Indeed, the conspicuous consumption of the Iranian wealthy and the seemingly abundant supply of Western luxury goods that increasingly appeared in Iranian society engendered a pervasive sense of relative deprivation among the middle and lower classes.95 Nonetheless, Said Amir Arjomand has concluded that social transformation in Iran in this period was much more "deep-rooted" than was the experience of rapid economic change. "What underlay the widespread desire for revolutionary change was a fundamental disorientation and anomie more than a superficial and short-run frustration of material expectation."96 Efforts by the Shah to Westernize Iranian society engendered three distinct forms of mass stress and grievance: (1) religious—negative reactions to the Shah's explicit attempts to reduce the power of Shi'ism and the ulama, and the persistent invocation of policies that violated the laws of Islam; (2) economic—the heavy reliance on revenues derived from the sale of oil and the widening of the gap between rich and poor; and (3) political—largely a response to the Shah's alliance with the West. These three factors combined to produce a sense of resentment, outrage, and indignation by the Iranian lower and middle classes, many of whom clung to their fundamentalist Shi'a and anti-Western beliefs regarding the future of their society. THE EFFECTS OF WESTERN IMPERIALISM: CRISIS, CULTURAL DISORIENTATION, AND ANOMIE Foreign cultural and economic intrusion created a fundamental disorientation and anomie in Iranian society, not unlike that which had occurred in China and Mexico earlier in the twentieth century. In all three cases, the impact of abrupt and significant socioeconomic change coming as the result of intrusion by foreign powers perceived as superior, immoral, and dominating were necessary preconditions for revolution. Foreign intervention significantly impinged upon the well-entrenched cultural system existing in these three societies and significantly disrupted the normative order.


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The forces of Western imperialism, unleashed over a lengthy period of time, created conditions of extreme social stress in China, Mexico, and Iran in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by severely disrupting the fundamental elements of their culture and economy. In the process, large segments of the population were uprooted and displaced. Ancient and sacred communal lands were seized, and entire indigenous communities were broken up. Western ways, perceived as corrupt, were injected into the prevailing moral and cultural order. Social stress was manifested in widespread frustration, bitterness, and humiliation, and ultimately provoked a sense of moral outrage and indignation among the peoples of these societies. The catastrophic effects of Western intrusion were far-reaching and significant. Cultural imperialism and foreign economic control were profoundly destructive of the well being and, from their perspective, the potential cultural and political survival of a deeply ethnocentric and once great peoples. An important mechanism available to the peoples of China, Indian Mexico, and Iran that would provide them with the potential to cope with such stress and to eventually revitalize and reintegrate into newer forms of social organization was a pervasive and durable tradition of millenarian beliefs. It is to this aspect of our study that we now turn our attention. NOTES 1. For a comprehensive study of the forces that engendered economic competition among the great powers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875-1914 (New York: Pantheon, 1987). 2. Ibid, 50-55. 3. Although I have focused on the economic sources of the competition for empire at the turn of the century, one should not ignore the equally important influence of nationalism. All of the great powers were motivated by the largely undisciplined forces of national identity and national pride, and the pursuit of national self-fulfillment and power. These motivations were equally important in creating a highly competitive international system. Cf. Dudley Seers, The Political Economy of Nationalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983) and Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism in the Twentieth Century (New York: New York University Press, 1979). 4. John King Fairbank, China: A New History (Cambridge: Harvard Belknap Press, 1992), 18. 5. Ibid., 20. 6. Jean Chesneaux, Peasant Revolts in China: 1840-1949 (London: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1973), 10. 7. Robert Haskett, Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1991), 4-5,196-202; see also idem, "Indian Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca: Persistence, Adaptation, and Change," Hispanic American Historical Review 67: 2 (May 1987): 203,207,218-19,224, 231. 8. Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 25.

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9. By the early eighteenth century, New Spain was the world's leading supplier of silver; cf. Ramon Eduardo Ruiz, Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People (New York: Norton, 1992), 137. See also John Mason Hart, Revolutionary Mexico: The Coming and Process of the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 187-88. Mexico became especially important to U.S. capital, industrial, and trade development in the late nineteenth century. 10. Hart, 188. These factors engendered "cross-class dissent rooted in economic and political nationalism, followed by mass unrest and finally revolution." 11. Herlee G. Creel, Chinese Thought: From Confucius to Mao Tse-tung (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 1. 12. Fairbank, China: A New History, 25. Nonetheless, in contrast to European nationalism, which emerged as the result of frequent contact and interaction with other similar states, Chinese "culturalism" arose in response to the cultural differences between China and the "Inner Asian 'barbarians/ " "Because the Inner Asian invaders became more powerful as warriors, the Chinese found their refuge in social institutions and feelings of cultural and aesthetic superiority—something that alien conquest could not take away." 13. Bricker, 92. The Mayans created laws that "condemned all foreigners, even including other tribes, to a subordinate role in their society, and often to permanent slavery." 14. Choueiri, 25-29. 15. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 130. Western technical superiority to the Chinese, for example, was on daily display in the treaty ports. 16. Ibid., 131. 17. DeFronzo, 67; see also Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 125-40. 18. Fairbank, China: A New History, 189. 19. Mary Clabaugh Wright, ed., China in Revolution: The First Phase, 1900-1913 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 8. 20. Ibid., 3-4. 21. Eric Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 277. Peasant societies around the world consider land to be "part of the natural landscape not created to be bought and sold, and it is not regarded as a commodity in most other kinds of societies whererightsto land are aspects of specific social groups and its utilization the ingredients of specific social relationships. To the Mexican Indian, to the Russian or Vietnamese peasant, land was an attribute to his community.... Even the Chinese peasant, long used to buying and selling land, regards land as more of a family heirloom than as a commodity. Possession of land guaranteed family continuity, selling it offended 'the ethical sense.' " Cf. also Fei Hsiao-tung, Peasant Life in China: A Field Study of Country Life in the Yangtze Valley (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, and Co., 1939). 22. Serge Gruzinski, Man-Gods of the Mexican Highlands, translated from the French by Eileen Corrigan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989), 36. 23. The Cientificos were a group of intellectuals who dominated the political regime of Porfirio Diaz in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Mexico. They advocated "scientific politics"—the application of the "methods of science" to the "practical ends of economic development, social regeneration, and political unity." For an excellent study of the important role of the Cientificos in Mexican politics in this era cf. Charles A. Hale, The Transformation of Liberalism in Late Nineteenth-Century Mexico (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989). 24. Gruzinski, 14. 25. Ruiz, 127.


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26. Adolfo Gilly, The Mexican Revolution, translated from the Spanish by Patrick Camiller (London: Verso, 1983), 46;firstpublished as La revolucion interrumpida (Mexico, D.F.: El Caballito, 1971). 27. Ibid., 47. 28. Rude\ 79-92. The Luddite movement was prominent in late-eighteenth and earlynineteenth-century Britain. It was composed largely of displaced workers who were frustrated by the fact that their manual work functions had been replaced by more advanced machines. In protest, the Luddites would break into factories and destroy the machines. 29. Chesneaux, 50. 30. Ibid., 50-64. 31. Cf. William Eagieton, Jr., The Kurdish Republic of 1946 (London: Oxford University Press, 1963). 32. Ibid., 111. 33. Nikki R. Keddie, "Shiism and Revolution," in Religion, Rebellion, and Revolution, ed. Bruce Lincoln (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985), 157-82. 34. Ruh Allah Khomeini, Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, translated and edited by Hamid Algar (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1981), 29-30,38. 35. Ervand Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 17-18. In addition, in an effort to modernize society the Shah restricted "the number of pilgrims going to Mecca, of students entering the seminaries, and of seminary graduates entitled to wear the 'amameh [turban]; encouraged the removal of the veil and the entry of women into social activities outside of the home; and, of course, drastically expanded the modem educational system with its secular values and Western-styled curriculum" (18). The goal of these policies was tofirmlyestablish a state-maintained system of law and order, which "thereby helped internal commerce; retained the monarchy and vowed to enforce the shari'a" (18). In the early years (prior to 1960), these policies were approved of by many members of the ulama and the bazaaris. 36. Keddie, "Shi'ism and Revolution" 172. 37. M. M. Salehi, Insurgency through Culture and Religion: The Islamic Revolution of Iran (New York: Praeger, 1988), 120. 38. Nikki R. Keddie and Eric Hoogland, ed., The Iranian Revolution & The Islamic Republic (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986), 7-8. 39. Quoted in Shaul Bakhash, The Reign oftheAyatollahs, 12. Cf. Marvin Zonis, "Iran: A Theory of Revolution from the Accounts of the Revolution," World Politics (July 1983): 600. 40. Bakash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs, 12. "Virtually overnight, Iran's oil revenues quadmpled, from under $5 billion to nearly $20 billion a year. The Shah believed that this money would enable him at last to carry the country to his long promised 'Great Civilization* and within a decade, turn Iran into one of the world's five leading industrial countries. He plunged into a reckless spending program." 41. Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 231-45; Farrokh Moshiri, "Iran: Islamic Revolution against Westernization," in Revolutions ofthe Late Twentieth Century, ed. Jack A Goldstone, Ted Robert Gurr, and Farrokh Moshiri (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 121-29. 42. T. W. Overlach, Foreign Financial Control in China (New York: Macmillan, 1919), 1-14. 43. The international treaties executed between,first,China and Britain (1841-43) and, later, with the United States (1844), France (1844), and Russia (1858) were considered to

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be between equal sovereign nations. In reality, this was far from the case. Indeed, they were in fact "quite unequal." Fairbank, China: A New History, 201. 44. Ibid., 7. 45. Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, 117. 46. Ibid., 117. 47. Wright, 55. 48. Ibid., 55. 49. Ibid., 55. 50. Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, 116-17. 51. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 207. "Like Mexico, in China foreign financial control undermined the potential development of an entrepreneurial national bourgeoisie." This contributed to longer term peasant unrest, the control of which, by the turn of the century, was increasingly turned over to "regional elites and provincial military commanders [who thus] increased their powers vis-a-vis the Manchu Dynasty" (208). Cf. also Overlach, 127. 52. Ernest P. Young, "Nationalism, Reform and Republican Revolution: China in the Early Twentieth Century," in Modern East Asia: Essays in Interpretation, ed. James B. Crowley (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1970), 166. 53. Roger D. Hansen, The Politics of Mexican Development (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971), 14. 54. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 177-78. Quantitatively, by 1910, foreign corporations and investors owned over 130 of Mexico's 170 largest economic enterprises. To complete this economic picture, "the economic power of the Mexican bourgeoisie survived only in agriculture." 55. Mining, in particular, "tied the Mexican economy to a kite: the price fluctuations on the international market. Silver moreover, confronted a somber future because the industrial West had gone on the gold standard." Ruiz, 278. 56. Colin M. MacLachlan, Anarchism and the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 19. 57. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 2; Gilly, 47; and Ruiz, 278-83. Unemployment was a constant threat to the Mexican worker around the turn of the twentieth century and continued through the period leading up to revolution. "The jobless chart followed the ups and downs of a dependent economy, which the absence of a healthy national market aggravated. The ups and downs of the Victorian Age, the years of the Porfirata, dealt harshly with Mexico's workers; international debacles were the rule, not the exception, starting with the great crash of 1873, followed by that of 1893, the downturn of 1900, and the financial panic of 1907" (quote is from Ruiz, 282). 58. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 6. 59. Ibid., 7. It is important to note that the absentee owners of large land holdings in Morelos were both wealthy Mexicans and foreigners, many of whom resided in Mexico City. 60. Ibid., 43. 61. John Womack, Zapata and the Mexican Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1968), 63. 62. Ibid., 63-64. 63. Eyler Simpson, The Ejido (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1937), 24. 64. Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, 15-16. He concludes that "what had begun as a campaign to create a viable mral middle class composed of small farmers ended in a triumphant victory of a landed oligarchy." (16)


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65. Ibid., 16. Wolf's source for this data is George McCutchen McBride, The Land Systems of Mexico, American Geographical Society Research Series No. 12 (New York: American Geographical Society, 1923). Wolf asserts, "unfortunately McBride did not take into account in his enumeration that one hacienda owner might own more than one hacienda; the degree of concentration on landholding probably was even greater that suggested by McBride'sfigures"(16). Hart places the number of haciendas in 1910 at 8,431. 66. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 165. 67. Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, 16. 68. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 47. The lands sold to Richardson Construction Company were acquired from a "Mexican short-term private holder" who "sold it after acquiring it by denunciation procedures from the government." This tract was adjacent to an even larger bloc of land held by the "Phoenix-based Wheeler Land Company controlled by Stanton Hyer of Rockport, Illinois, and a consortium of Chicago capitalists." Hart cites Folders 13, 20, and 31, Box 106, Senator Albert Bacon Fall Papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, as the source of this information. 69. Ibid., 158. 70. Ibid., 47-48. 71. Cf. Nikki R. Keddie, Religion and Rebellion in Iran: The Tobacco Protest of 1891-1892 (London: Frank Cass, 1966). The Tobacco Protest emerged in response to this foreign monopoly. 72. Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 186. 73. Keddie, The Tobacco Protest of 1891-92,43-44. 74. Cf. Said Amir Arjomand, "The Ulama's Traditionalist Opposition to Parliamentarianism," Middle Eastern Studies 17 (April 1981): 179. 75. Cf. David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (New York: Avon, 1989), 460-61. See also Shah rough Akhavi, Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran: Clergy-State Relations in the Pahlavi Period (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980), 28. "By 1920 the British were prepared to impose a League of Nations mandate over Iraq. However, upon reconsideration produced by the widespread internal rebellion in that year, it was decided that the establishment of a monarchy, a limited form of constitutional government and an alliance with the United Kingdom would better serve the purpose." Akhavi, 28. 76. Akhavi, 23-31. 77. For a historical overview of this period, see Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 87-113, and Akhavi, chapter 2: "Clergy-State Relations before 1941." 78. Oil prices and profits actually tripled during the war years. See Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 132. 79. L. P. Elwell-Sutton, Persian Oil: A Study in Power Politics (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1955), 127-51. As a result of these conflicts, in the eyes of many Iranians the AIOC came to be seen as the symbol of British power and dominance over Iran. 80. Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 133. 81. Ibid., 133. Public feeling in Iran during this period was expressed through marked demonstrations that eventually led the Iranian parliament to turn in favor of public policies advocated by Musaddiq. They approved the nationalization of the oil industry in March, 1951, "and soon thereafter, Musaddiq became premier, replacing the shah's choice, Hosain Ala." 82. According to Akhavi (63) seven issues of public policy were of particular importance to the ulama in the early 1950s: "(1) women's suffrage"—the ulama were opposed to the

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right of Iranian women to vote; (2) therightof women to join political parties and participate in the political process; (3) "the nationalization of the AIOC and the destruction of foreign influence"—the ulama was profoundly anti-foreign; and, (4) "Baha'ism and the anti-Baha'i movement" which the ulama perceived to be their theological enemies; (5) "the subject matter published by the press"; (6) "orientations toward the militant fundamentalist movement, Fida'iyan Islam"; and (7) "communism and left wing challenges to the clergy (by and large considered identical in the minds of the ulama)." 83. Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 13T7-41. 84. Ibid., 141. 85. Ibid., 201. 86. Cf. for example, Henry Munson, Jr. Islam and Revolution in the Middle East (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 110-11. Munson asserts that the modernization and Westernization efforts of the Shah of Iran in the 1960s and 1970s had little if anything to do with the onset of revolution in 1979. He argues that the modernization and Westernization efforts of the Shah's father in the 1920s and 1930s were far more aggressive and that because such efforts did not engender revolution then, similar efforts in the 1970s also did not contribute to revolution. "The social and cultural innovations effected by the shah's father Reza Shah in the 1920s and 1930s violated people's traditional religious values far more than any of the innovations implemented by the shah in the 1970s. We have seen that from 1925 through 1936, Reza Shah radically curtailed the legal and social role of Islam in Iran and tried to force Iranian men and women to wear Western clothes, going so far as to prohibit the wearing of the veil by Iranian women in 1936. These innovations directly affected and outraged most Iranians. Yet the protests they provoked were easily suppressed." He concludes that "widespread moral outrage does not entail revolution." 87. Abrahamian, "Structural Causes of the Iranian Revolution," 118. 88. Ibid., 118. 89. Cf. Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 142-45. 90. Bakhash, The Reign oftheAyatollahs, 12-13. 91. Richard W. Cottam, "The Iranian Revolution," in Shi'ism and Social Protest, ed. Juan R. I. Cole and Nikki R. Keddie (New Haven; Yale University Press, 1986), 81. 92. Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 172-73. 93. Ibid., 174. 94. Ibid., 174. 95. Said Amir Arjomand, "Iran's Islamic Revolution in Comparative Perspective," 397. 96. Ibid., 397.

3

The Preparatory Function

t the center of all revolutions is the idea of a total, uncompromising transfor-

A mation of society. Revolutionists are not content to simply repair the sources

of the problems and evils of today. They undertake to completely remake the social system. Nonetheless, such a process does not begin overnight, and the idea of massive social redemption is not one that even the least sophisticated of revolutionists takes lightly. Over a lengthy period of time, the way must be carefully and properly prepared for the coming transformation—people must be mobilized, a revolutionary organization must emerge, ideologies must be crafted, grievances must be effectively articulated, leaders must come forward and become legitimized, and a call for action must be extended. The timing of each of these actions is critical. If any occur at an inappropriate moment—either prematurely or unduly late—then the potential for revolution may collapse. Revolution is never the result of any single causal factor. It is frequently in response to a multiplicity of long-festering socioeconomic and political issues. The patience of the masses is usually pushed to the limit and sometimes beyond. Indeed, in the years leading up to revolution, massive state repression, which represents the manifestation of the government's fear of the masses' potential for transformation, is the norm and not the exception. While some symbolic flashpoint event—the Minutemen at Lexington Green, the fall of the Bastille, Castro's capture of Santiago—often comes to be identified with the onset of revolution, these images significantly discount the true, slowly emerging character of revolution. Millenarian expectations lie at the core of this gradual, preparatory process. First, millenarianism sets up the possibility that the present can, in fact, be transcended. Without such a faith, humankind would remain static in the reality

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of the present world, possessing no understanding of the idea of progress beyond present conditions. Second, millenarianism is the agent that comes to provide the revolutionist with his or her vision of the idealized future. Chiliastic expectations come to specifically define what the future has in store, once the evils of the present have been successfully transcended. Indeed, it is from millenarian beliefs that the ability to establish a radical contrast between the ideal and the existing reality of society emerges. And in the process, millenarianism creates an extraordinary sense of tension between a vision of what the world should be and what it actually is. Finally, millenarian expectations serve to orient human activity to transform the world in accordance with the future ideal it portrays. These beliefs both mobilize society and harness resources in preparation for the changes that are believed to be imminent. In short, millenarianism performs an important preparatory function in the processes that surround massive social transformation—that is, revolution. In the evolution of millenarian ideas from the traditional to the modern world, we should again acknowledge a concurrent transformation in the sources of apocalyptic power. Members of millenarian movements inspired by explicitly religious eschatology are convinced that social salvation will come about magically through the abrupt intervention of a supernatural power; as a result of the return of a messiah, or divine deliverer.1 In contrast, as I have already noted, modern revolutionary millenarian movements have definite ideas about how social salvation will take place here and now. They contend that responsibility for transformation lies in the hands of humans, not in supernatural and miraculous events. Nevertheless, such a clear distinction between explicitly religious-inspired millenarianism and the modern secularized form can be problematic. Indeed, it is often quite difficult to discern that differences exist. Any distinction between the two inherently suggests some gradual linear ideological progression away from the belief in a supernatural power to engender the millennium, toward the conception that social salvation and transformation may be achieved as a result of the efforts of some relevant national community. Does such a progression guarantee that the religious foundations of the millenarian idea are somehow abandoned along the way and create a purely secularized form of millenarianism? Is there a collective rejection of the religious faith that surrounds the belief in a messiah? Or is it possible that the one idea becomes somehow fused to, blended with, or overlaid onto the other? If so, what is the nature of such a process? In order to attempt an answer to these issues, we must understand, first, that all modern revolutionary millenarian movements trace their origins directly to pervasive and durable religious millenarian beliefs that exist within a society. Without this theological foundation, revolutionary millenarianism would be impossible. Had there been no religious apocalyptic tradition, whether in traditional folk religions, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or otherwise, there could be no modern, "secular" form of millenarianism. Only when the pervasive tradition of religiously inspired millenarian expectations is influenced by, and eventually converges with


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modern, scientific ideas and theories of social progress, as occurred in the West in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, is a new doctrine of revolutionary millenarianism capable of coming to life. Religiously inspired millenarian movements, by themselves, are incapable of manifesting themselves in a revolution. As we shall see, such movements have often demonstrated that they are capable of producing what amounts to merely vague hopes of salvation and largely random outbursts of ineffective violence. They expect social transformation to occur on its own, as the result of miraculous, divine revelation.2 In this sense, they may be characterized as rebellious rather than revolutionary in scope, striking out in a violent way at some poorly defined demonic influence that brings a significant degree of stress and disruption to the followers' way of life. Their only goal is to return society to the supposed bliss of its previous order and harmony which, in retrospect and in a fit of wishful thinking, is increasingly portrayed as some sort of Utopian existence. Such movements do not seek social transformation as much as the reconstruction of their traditional ways. Nonetheless, when pure, religiously inspired millenarian movements converge with a modern ideology that outlines a specific program of social progress, which is frequently imported from outside sources, they alter their belief in the return of a messiah that will save society and substitute a modern secular theory of history and social progress, one that is "nationalist, socialist, communist, anarchist, or of some other type."3 This superstructure of modern political radicalism is effectively blended with the zealous spirit of rebellion to produce "a programme, a doctrine concerning the transfer of power and above all a system of organization."4 Despite this alteration, these movements retain their rejection of the present evil world. Their goals become more well defined, and a clearly stated mission of social and political transformation emerges. It is through such a convergence that revolutionary millenarianism comes alive.5 While it is the traditional pure messianic quality that provides such a movement with its passionate enthusiasm and ardor, it is the secular program of social progress that promotes an effective organizational structure and a goal orientation. While the goals of the movement remain perfection itself and may be characterized as boundless, nonetheless, some attempt is made to articulate such goals in a less vague, less naive, and more rational manner. This connection between a durable, pervasive tradition of religiously inspired millenarianism and the rise of nationalist revolutionary movements has been observed not only in Western societies caught up in the throes of development, as we have already discussed, but also in non-Western developing societies embroiled in similar conditions. For example, in east and central Africa, in the tumultuous period of the 1950s and 1960s, non-Western millenarian movements, similar to those in the West, were equally capable of transforming themselves by converging with modern secular forms of social theories of history and progress.

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The new mass party in East and Central Africa, often appears in a charismatic, almost millenarian role [and] appeals to the memories of primary resistance, and for the same reaso as the millenarian cults did.... It was the National Democratic Party [in Southern Rhodesia of 1960-1 whichfirstpenetrated the rural areas and began to link the radical leadership of the towns with mral discontent. As it did so, the themes and memories of the [millenarian] rebellions flowed back into nationalism.... [T]he past heritage was revived through prayers and traditional singing, ancestral spirits were evoked to guide... the nation. Christianity and civilization took a back seat and new forms of worship... were thrust forward dramatically.... [T]he spirit pervading the meetings was African and the desire was to put the twentieth century in an African context.6 Eric Hobsbawm argues that modern millenarian revolutionary movements jettison the remnants of their pure religious origins and completely replace them with explicitly secular theories of social, political, and economic progress; in this way, one set of ideas is fully substituted for another.7 Nevertheless, the available evidence of the Chinese, Mexican, and Iranian cases suggests that rather than replacement, a more appropriate description would be the fusion or, if you will, the convergence of religious and secular notions, in varying degrees, of millenarian transformation and progress. Let me provide one example to explain what otherwise appears to be a contradiction. The acceptance of Ayatollah Khomeini's writings on the justification for the principles of Islamic government by a majority of Iranians was significantly influenced by the explicitly socialist writings of Ali Shariati.8 Nonetheless, much of Khomeini's mass of support came from lower-class, devout Shi'ite Iranians who believed Khomeini to be the returned Hidden Imam who would bring about God's promise of justice and harmony to earth.9 Indeed, traditional customs, festivals, and other sacred symbols that surround the apocalyptic elements of Twelver Shi'ism performed an important function in the mobilization of the Iranian people prior to and during the revolution, and supported the legitimacy for Khomeini's political power. The legitimacy of his power was widely accepted by the masses in Iran. "Comparatively, Khomeini and his associates took upon themselves a vanguard, state-building, and state-dominating role, legitimated by their clerical position, similar to that of the Jacobins in revolutionary France and the Communists in revolutionary Russia and China, which were legitimated by a more 'secular' ideology."10 Religious-inspired, pure millenarian movements frequently manifested themselves throughout the history of traditional China, Mexico, and Iran, in frequent uprisings of social protest in times of crisis. These movements may be characterized as rebellious rather than revolutionary in nature, primarily because, while their means were usually violent, their ends were always vague and naive. As a result, they were incapable of achieving their ill-defined goals and generally doomed to failure. Nonetheless, the eventual convergence, beginning in the nineteenth century, of this profound, lengthy, and durable "pure" millenarian tradition with the ideas and programs of secular theories of history and social progress created, in all three


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societies, important revolutionary movements—the Maoist variant of Marxist Leninism in China, the anarcho-syndicalist influence on the Zapatistas in southcentral Mexico, and the socialist influence on the Islamic-dominated Iranian Revolution. Each of these secular theories of revolution entered society from the outside as a new view of the world and offered a plausible solution to the social stress and catastrophe of Western intrusion. The hope that these programs of progress inspired meshed effectively with the tradition of religiously inspired millenarian beliefs and eschatological hopes already present. In this way millenarianism performed an important function by paving the way and preparing these societies for potential transformation through revolution. At the center of all revolutions is a unique mixture of diverse movements—peasant uprisings, elite political revolts, religious eschatology, and others—that in times of crisis combine into a concerted attack on the institutions of the ancien regime.11 In this context, revolutionary millenarianism performs the role of a distinctly powerful ideology of change; a radical program of social metamorphosis linked with the ideals of political theories grounded in utopianism, ideals that offer the appealing notion of a future perfect world. In this way, religiously inspired millenarianism mediated through radical political ideology can significantly contribute to and prepare the way for the outbreak of a revolution. MILLENARIANISM IN TRADITIONAL CHINA Ancient Chinese society was founded on two basic tenets of the Confucian code: order and harmony. These two ideals were sought through a focus on the collective, not the individual. It was the obligation of everyone, for example, to readily accept his or her own destiny by fulfilling a prescribed role as a component of the overall social system. The highest priority was placed on the promotion of good for all. It was believed that only through such a process could social harmony be assured.12 Social organization and order in traditional China were grounded in a hierarchy of superior-inferior relationships. For example, parents were considered to be superior to their children, and men were considered to be superior to their wives. Each person had an assigned role in society largely based upon this hierarchy. It was believed that if everyone performed his or her role satisfactorily, "the social world would be sustained."13 At the top of this social hierarchy was the emperor. Through his possession of the "mandate of heaven," it was believed that he derived his position and authority from supernatural powers and was a Deity on earth, superior to all others.14 Beginning with the Xia and Shang prehistoric dynasties, dating back to 2100 B.C, traditional Chinese ruling families utilized predominantly religious rituals to enhance their legitimacy to rule. This was achieved through the widely accepted power to communicate with the spirits of ancient ancestors in order to receive their sacred guidance and support.15 The other fundamental principle of the Confucian code was the notion that humanity was capable of perfection; all of its problems could be overcome through

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the process of education and individual efforts at self-cultivation. In this sense, an important Utopian subculture of Confucianism slowly evolved in traditional China. Erudition and learning came to be held up as a powerful model accompanied by a belief that human nature eventually could be perfected through the process of individual efforts at development.16 It has been argued that the basic concept of revolution in traditional China complemented the emperor's authority to rule. Tienming, in Chinese, literally means "the mandate of heaven." Ko'ming, which Americans would translate as "revolution," literally means "to withdraw the mandate." Chalmers Johnson asserts that the notion of revolution in traditional China is impossible to comprehend without first understanding the idea of "the mandate of heaven" that provided legitimacy to the emperor's right to rule.17 Nevertheless, the historical evidence surrounding the dynastic cycle indicates that the withdrawal of the mandate in traditional China, at least until the nineteenth century, engendered rebellion, not revolution. On the few occasions when a peasant rebellion played a role in actually toppling an Emperor, postrebellion changes tended to be limited to establishing a new ruling dynasty and only temporary improvements in the efficiency and fairness of government policy and action. In all of these cases, the Confucian system was maintained intact. The emperor was the "Son of Heaven"18 who possessed the "mandate of heaven," which, it was widely believed, guaranteed the harmony of China. However, this harmony could deteriorate quickly into national disorientation if the emperor suddenly came to be perceived as no longer worthy of the mandate or was seen as unsatisfactorily performing his responsibilities. Such unworthiness could be indicated by a series of ominous signs: "by climactic disturbances, by corruption in the bureaucracy, by the degeneration of dikes and canals, and particularly by the growth of rural unrest."19 Through such signs it was believed that heaven was rejecting the ruler and thus was withdrawing the mandate.20 The tendency of the Chinese people to interpret natural disasters as some form of "sign" played a meaningful role in the dynastic cycle. Natural calamities such as earthquakes, floods, comets, eclipses, and poor harvests were frequently seen as omens that something was wrong.21 In response to a continuing string of such "signs," the people would conclude that the emperor was the source of the problem, that he was governing improperly and such conduct was causing him to lose the mandate of heaven.22 As a result, the masses would often rise up in rebellion against the ruling dynasty. Indeed, no country has a richer or more lengthy legacy of peasant revolts than China.23 Although both were unsuccessful, the Yellow Turban Revolt in AD. 184 and the Five Bushels of Rice Rebellion around AD. 200, for example, nevertheless contributed to the ultimate downfall of the Han dynasty. At the foundation of these movements was heterodox Taoist millenarianism.24 The Yellow Turbans believed that their military leader, Chang Chueh, was the promised deliverer. He assumed the title of Lord of Heaven General, and named his two brothers Lord of Earth General and Lord of Humanity General. In this way, "the brothers presented


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themselves to the people as symbolic embodiments of heaven, earth, and humankind."25 The religious nature of the millenarian uprisings in China has changed often over time. The Yellow Turbans, for example, were influenced by primarily Taoist doctrine and language, as were many other rebellions during the next 250 years. Later, the Mahay ana Rebellion in AD. SIS took on a distinctive Buddhist guise. Led by clerics, the Mahayanas announced that a new epoch had arrived in China: one that would be dominated by Buddhist doctrines. Their slogan was "a new Buddha is born: away with the old demons." Still other movements seemed to be influenced by Manichean teachings.26 Some Chinese emperors, assisted by their Confucian administrators, sought to perfect society from the top down. For example, the eleventh-century reformer Wang An-shih sought to achieve Utopia by utilizing the power of the state to redistribute wealth and other social inequalities. To some degree a harbinger of CCP policies in the twentieth century, "Wang hoped to reduce the role of the private sector in Chinese society by restricting land-holding and private wealth. In addition, he sought to organize the people into groupings that were, in theory, mutually responsible."27 In another case, in 1643, Li Tzu-ch'eng, the leader of the rebellion that eventually overthrew the Ming dynasty, heralded himself as the "king protected by heaven," and founded a primitive yet practical egalitarian and Utopian state in northwest China.28 In addition to the concept of the "mandate of heaven," another aspect of traditional Chinese society that is important to our study is the secret societies. Secret societies were directly involved in all of the peasant rebellions in Chinese history. Indeed, secret societies provided important functional roles that tended to sustain political and social opposition, in spite of the episodic character of Chinese rebel movements.In the face of social and political transformation that, as we have seen, often engendered rebellion, secret societies were the agent of continuity that supplied leadership, while concurrently serving as refuges in case of defeat. Indeed, they acted as a kind of "substitute lineage" for their members by welcoming destitute peasants who had perhaps lost their families and village ties. They provided many peasants with a "replacement identity in the form of an elective fraternal brotherhood." It was a common custom, for example, for members to refer to each other as "brother."29 The secret societies functioned as a "mutual aid organization in its most elementary form, providing a degree of social security for their members when no other existed." For example, they assisted families in case of sickness, disaster, or death by giving them either care, food, shelter, or protection.30 The societies thrived in many of the rural villages and peasant regions of China, and their membership reflected this fact Nonetheless, some of their adherents were of the "lower scholargentry class" who sympathized with the societies' political and social goals.31 The organizational structure of the secret societies was strictly hierarchical. In addition, they possessed secret passwords and symbols that were disseminated to

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new members only through a complicated and highlyritualizedinitiation ceremon Such rituals and symbols served to strengthen the identity function of these organizations both by satisfying an important affiliative need of their members and by fixing a premium on membership. The religious influence on Chinese secret societies was particularly profound.32 Virtually all of them practiced "cult rituals, subjected their initiates to trials by ordeal, communicated through mediums, utilized charms and amulets supposedly capable of rendering its user invulnerable to danger,33 and promised all members the hope of spiritual salvation of life after death."34 The heterodox Buddhist orientation provided the belief system of the secret societies with its millenarian foundation; each of them eagerly anticipated the return of messianic Buddhas.35 In addition, they leaned toward perceiving disastrous and disorienting conditions in China in the present time as merely a prelude to a future paradise.36 The secret societies were profoundly antiforeign. The White Lotus movement, for example, around AD. 1360, actively protested against the policies of the Yuan dynasty. In the process, they combined a form of nascent Chinese peasant-based nationalism with a blatant appeal to the hopes of poverty-stricken peasants by promising the imminent return of the Matreya, who would return as a Chinese savi in a time of social, physical, or economic catastrophe.37 The White Lotus movement engendered a number of additional millenarian secret societies, such as the Eight Trigrams, the Nien, the Great Knife, the Boxers, the Society of the Faith, and the Red Spears. Each of these groups, rather easily, attracted their adherentsfrom"disaffected gentry, from the peasantry-especially the dispossessed, destitute, and marginal elements of Chinese towns and villages-and from artisans, petty merchants, smugglers, former soldiers and bandits."38 Politically, the secret societies directed most of their efforts against the imperial government, particularly when it was controlled by foreign invaders, as was the case with both the Yuan (1280-1368) and the Manchu (1644-1912) dynasties. The most important contribution of the secret societies to the political life of China was the model they provided for organizations committed to rebellion against the state. Their militant union, formed as "brotherhoods of the persecuted and of those who had no voice or power in the existing political and social structure," ma a special contribution to political life in traditional China. They effectively performed as underground opposition political movements openly inimical to the existing government and "provided a model after which a rebellious organization could be patterned instead of being themselves the vehicles through which it could be carried out."39 An important generational linkage exists between the secret societies and the Chinese Communist Party. Many early communist leaders, such as Chu Teh, Ho Lung, and Liu Tzu-tan, were former members of secret societies who used their connections to further the cause of the the CCP.40 In one context this generational linkage supports the idea that corrupt, ineffectual regimes under extended political pressure—in this instance the Manchu dynasty—actually face a series of challeng


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ers who learn from their predecessors.The newer challengers add fresh, innovative sociopolitical formulations and ideological changes to the antiregime movement in an important dialectical process. This notion stands in stark contrast to the idea that millenarian movements are fundamentally conservative and only capable of looking back in time to a previous Golden Age. On October 8, 1813, more than one hundred hopeless and despairing Chinese peasants, largely from villages south of Peking, gathered together in shops and other buildings located just outside the western and eastern gates of the imperial palace in the Forbidden City. These peasants were members of a three-hundred-year-old millenarian religion and secret society known as the Eight Trigrams. Their deity was the Eternal Unborn Mother whom they believed was the "progenitor of all mankind." They were convinced that a "great cosmic holocaust was about to destroy the world." In response, the Eternal Mother would send down the new Matreya of the Future who would save all of the faithful.41 In anticipation of the advent of the Matreya, the simple and somewhat vague plan that the Eight Trigrams had in mind was to seize the imperial palace. In response, they were convinced that the mass of people would rise up and join in the rebellion and overthrow the emperor. The uprisings took place as planned but were imperfectly coordinated. An attempt to seize the Forbidden City in Peking was quickly thwarted, and government troops were immediately dispatched to restore order in the provinces. The rebels were eventually besieged in a single city in northern Honan province, and after three days of fighting, the city was taken and the rebellion of the Eight Trigrams brought to an end.42 In the end, the Eight Trigrams Rebellion can be described as vague in its goals and "pathetic" in its means. In this sense it followed a pattern that was repeated in many millenarian-inspired rebellions that occurred in" traditional China during the Manchu dynasty, such as those of Hsu Hung-ju (1622), Wang Lun (1774), or the White Lotus Rebellion (1796-1803). 43 The most notable of millenarian uprisings occurring in traditional China was the Taiping Rebellion, which began in 18S1 and was not completely suppressed until 1864. By the mid eighteenth century, a number of factors made conditions for a rebellion against the Manchu dynasty very favorable. First, a serious agrarian crisis emerged as the result of a population explosion in China. At the same time, the amount of agricultural land under cultivation was minimal. According to one estimate, between 1772 and 1812 the population of China had grown by 190percent while agricultural lands actually under cultivation had increased only 35 percent.44 By the middle of the century, there was simply not enough food available. Famine became epidemic. These problems were exacerbated by a combination of frequent drought, floods, earthquakes, and sandstorms that contributed to massive crop failures in the second quarter of the nineteenth century.45 A second factor contributing to the onset of peasant rebellion at this time was the declining legitimacy of the Manchu dynasty. The Chinese defeat in the Opium

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War and the harsh terms imposed by the British in the Treaty of Nanking (1842) worsened economic conditions in China. For example, the burdening reparation requirements imposed on the government reduced silver reserves. This in turn engendered a higher exchange rate between copper and silver and rapid inflation. Subsequently, Chinese foreign commerce dropped sharply, leading to high levels of unemployment in the treaty ports and the economic dislocation of thousands of Chinese workers.46 The Taiping Rebellion began in rural south China and was led by a charismatic prophet, Hung Hsiu-ch'uan, a Christian convert who had been deeply influenced by both the Utopian strains of Chinese traditionalism and a chance contact with the doctrines of Christianity. Hung's family, in contrast to that of most of the other youth of his village and region, was somewhat well off and thus able to provide him with a formal education. In the process, he quickly exhibited a rather high degree of intellectual promise by passing the qualifying examinations for the lowest level civil service appointment at age of thirteen. This created high hopes in Hung and his family of eventually passing the more important government examinations that led to bureaucratic distinction, high government positions, and wealth.47 Four times in the next twenty years Hung sat for the sheng-yuan (lowest level government examination) at Canton—in 1827, 1836, 1837, and 1843—each time without success.48 During his second trip to Canton in 1836, he, on two occasions, encountered Christian missionaries preaching through interpreters on city streets.49 He accepted from the evangelists a set of books bearing the title Ch'uan-shih liang-yen (Good works for exhorting the Age) (Canton, 1832) that consisted of biblical quotations and a sketchy Chinese interpretation of the life and death of Jesus Christ50 On his visits to Canton, Hung also had the occasion to attend lectures given by the influential local scholar, Chu Tz'u-chi, on the Kung-yang Commentary and the Li-yun and Ta-tung chapters of the Li-chi (Book of Rites), central writings in the Utopian subtradition of Confucian thought.51 Nonetheless, following the examination, Hung returned home and resumed his duties as village teacher and after only a "superficial glance" at the contents of these religious materials, "put the nine pamphlets from Canton away on his bookshelf."52 The following spring, Hung returned to Canton to again take the examination, and again failed to pass. This failure had an apparently profound and deep impact on Hung. Disappointed that he had again been unsuccessful, he fell into a severe mental depression. To fail repeatedly after many years of study and sacrifice was considered a disgrace and for Hung, a personal catastrophe. Indeed, he had hoped to gain a position that was not only a great honor for himself and his family but, also, one that would have provided him the wherewithal to be of help to the people of his poor peasant region of south China.53 "Feeling very ill," it was necessary for Hung to be carried in a sedan chair from Canton back to his native village by two men. On arrival, he was confined to his bed for a number of days and he began to experience strange visions and hallucinations. Indeed, he was convinced of his imminent death and, in preparation,


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rendered an apologetic goodbye to his parents: "O my parents: how badly have I returned the favor of your love to me. I shall never attain a name that may reflect its lustre upon you."54Following this, Hung fell into a deep sleep and lost all strength and command over his body, "as if in death."55 "Having lost consciousness, he was considered dead for some time. Even today [18531, a large number of his subordinates still think that he really died and was later resurrected."56 Nonetheless, his mind remained active and his dreams became quite vivid. According to the orthodox Taiping version, as transcribed by the missionary Theodore Hamberg from the account of Hung's cousin, Hung Jen-kan, during his illness, Hung Hsiu-ch'uan experienced marvelous visions: He saw a dragon, a tiger and a cock entering his room, and soon afterward he observed a great number of men, approaching with a beautiful sedan chair, in which they invited him to be seated, and then carried him away.... They soon arrived at a beautiful luminous place . . . As he left the sedan, an old woman took him down to a river and said, "thou dirty man, why hast thou kept company with yonder people and defiled thyself? I must now wash thee clean." After the washing was performed, Siu-tshuen, in company with a great number of old virtuous and venerable men, among whom he remarked many of the ancient sages, entered a large building where they opened his body with a knife, took out his heart and other parts, and put in their place others new and of a red colour. Instantly when this was done, the wound closed, and he could see no trace of the incision which had been made. Upon the walls surrounding this place, Siu-tshuen remarked a number of Tablets with inscriptions exhorting to virtue, which he one by one examined. Afterwards they entered another large hall .... A man, venerable in years, with golden beard and dressed in a black robe, was sitting in an imposing attitude upon the highest place. As soon as he observed Siu-tshuen, he began to shed tears and said, "All human beings in the whole world are produced and sustained by me; they eat my food and wear my clothing, but not a single one among them has a heart to remember and venerate me; what is however still worse than tha they take of my gifts, and therewith worship demons; they purposely rebel against me, and arouse my anger. Do thou not imitate them." Thereupon he gave Siu-tshuen a sword, commanding him to exterminate the demons, but to spare his brothers and sisters; a seal by which he would overcome the evil spirits, and also a yellow fruit to eat.... The old man said to him, 'Take courage and do the work; I will assist thee in every difficulty."57 Hamberg goes on to explain: He then awoke from his trance, but still being under its influence [and] suddenly seized by a violent anger, forgetting his feebleness, put on his clothes, left his bedroom, went into the presence of his father, and making a low bow, said, "the venerable old man above has commanded that all men shall turn to me, and all treasures shall flow to me." The sickness and visions of Siu-tshuen continued about forty days, and in these visions he often met with a man of middle age, whom he called his elder brother, who instructed him how to act, accompanied him upon his wanderings to the uttermost regions in search of evil spirits, and assisted him in slaying and exterminating them. Siu-tshuen also heard the venerable old ma reprove Confucius for having omitted in his books clearly to expound the true doctrine. Confucius seemed much ashamed, and confessed his guilt.58

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In the summer of 1843, Hung received a visit from his cousin Li Ching-fang, who noticed the religious pamphlets from Canton on Hung's bookshelf and promptly asked if he might borrow them to read. Li's resulting enthusiasm and fascination with the materials inspired Hung to read them as well. He soon realized that within their extraordinary contents lay the key to his powerful visions six years earlier.59 With a growing fervor, Hung interpreted his previous dream experience as a visitation with God the Father, whom he identified as the venerable old man, and his Son Jesus, whom he perceived was his middle-aged elder brother. One after another, each vision came back to him, and they were "given new meaning by their remarkably close correspondence to the events described in the pamphlets." Hung "felt as if awaking from a long dream [and] rejoiced to have in reality a way to heaven, and sure hope of everlasting life and happiness.60 Hung claimed that it had been revealed to him that he was God's younger Son, the brother of Jesus Christ. He proclaimed that he had been instructed to gather followers and organize an army that would destroy the demons on earth in order to create a new Kingdom of God. There is general agreement that in 1837 Hung passed through an acute psychotic episode. His subsequent "megalomaniacal convictions, overbearing manner, outbursts of anger, and paranoiac behavior suggests a continuing and worsening mental illness after that date."61 In 1851, Hung proclaimed himself Heavenly King of a new dynasty, the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace.62 This movement turned into a massive rebellion against the Manchu government. Before it had run its course, the Taiping Rebellion became the bloodiest civil war on record—some estimates of its casualties exceed twenty million. Despite his history of mental illness, Hung successfully recruited new converts to his movement both quickly and in large numbers. By the mid-1850s, the Society of God Worshippers, as they were known, totalled over two million followers. Most of the first few thousand members, like Hung himself, were Hakkas, a group of settlers from north China who had migrated south and, because of their different customs and traditions, often clashed with other ethnic groups living in those areas in which they settled.63 Social distresses such as epidemic famine, banditry, and hostile ethnic groups within those regions in which the Hakkas lived created a receptive environment for the preachings of Hung.64 Although they borrowed heavilyfromthe doctrines and symbols of Christianity, the Taipings were far from a strictly Christian movement. Indeed, the God Worshippers had an amalgam of characteristics shared by previous traditional Chinese secret societies. More specifically, their ideology was influenced by both Buddhism and Taoism, as well as the eleventh-century reformer, Wang An-shih. In effect, the Taipings created a new socioreligious system in China that constituted a syncretism of imported Christian millennialism and the heterodox Buddhism of the traditional secret societies.65 The ideology of the Taiping state represented a significant change from traditional Chinese life. The Taiping state was a highly centralized regime in which all


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aspects of life— the family, food, clothing, education—were under the strict control of the self-appointed Taiping leaders, who enforced a rigid discipline by means of rewards, such as titles of nobility, fine houses, and so forth, and harsh punishments. The leaders' elevated status, which was unquestioned by Taiping adherents, was grounded in their pretense as sole interpreters of the divine will of God.66 As new lands were added to the kingdom, the Taipings sought, in those areas under their military control, to firmly establish a highly centralized government and social framework reporting to a heavenly capital based in Nanking. This government was clearly spelled out in their most normative document, the Land Regulations of the Heavenly Dynasty. It provided for a structured and disciplined order of how society should be organized and operated on an everyday basis.67 Indeed, the Taiping state was nothing less than a rigid theocracy. Its basic unit of sociopolitical order consisted of twenty-five families, who were under the strict control of a sergeant who would oversee the total religious, economic, and military life of the group. Above the sergeant was a hierarchy of officers who controlled both the civil administrative and military unit at his level of command. Above this hierarchy was a district and regional administrative structure that led ultimately to the Taiping leadership.68 In this way, military, economic, doctrinal, and religious control were placed in the hands of one leader at each level of society. As an American missionary observer wrote in 1854: Their government is a theocracy, the development, apparently, of what is believed, by them, to be a new dispensation. As in the case of the Israelites, under Moses, they regard themselv as directed by one who has been raised up, by the almighty, to be the executor of his will on earth. They believe their body-politic to be under the immediate direction of the Deity. Sometimes their leaders, they say, are taken up to heaven; and sometimes the Heavenly Fath comes down to them. Their government is a mixed form, half political and half religious. It would seem also to have both an earthly and a heavenly magistracy, or rather perhaps a visible and an invisible machinery, [and] all their affairs of state—things, temporal—are strangely blended with things divine.69 At its core the Taiping state represented a communal society: All the dwelling places are communal property: provisions and clothing have been deposite in public stores; gold, silver and precious objects taken to the public treasury. One cannot sell anything nor buy anything; money, in fact, would be useless in the hands of individuals. It is for the chiefs to provide for the different needs of their subordinates. And it is truly something worthy of admiration, that a population which the invasion has raised to more than a million can be regularly nourished and clothed in this way, as we have seen with our own eyes.70 The Taipings sought social reform in China by advocating equality among men and women; the abolishment of slavery, concubinage, and foot binding; and the promotion of morality through the banning of tobacco and opium smoking, gambling, idolatry, prostitution, and adultery. Their struggle against sin was, in reality,

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a total war being waged against foreign corruption and evil customs. In this war the Taiping leadership demanded complete, unquestioned commitment through the total rejection of existing values and social norms.71 By 1853 the Taiping movement had spread through southeastern China. That year a northern military campaign was launched in an effort to capture Peking. Nonetheless, it ended in failure. Another expedition to the Yangtze River delta and a third to conquer the upper Yangtze valley were successful.72 Taiping military power reached its peak around 1856, but declined after infighting resulted in the murder of some of its key generals.73 Around the same time, General Tseng Kuo-fang replaced the largely incompetent leadership of the Imperial Manchu Army. Combined with regional forces under the command of local warlords and significantly supported by foreign volunteers led by British General Charles "Chinese" Gordon, whose intervention ultimately tipped the scales of victory in favor of the Manchus, the "Ever Victorious" Imperial Army took Nanking. It succeeded in crushing the Taiping leadership in July 1864. Following this, the movement quickly collapsed. In the end, Hung committed suicide and his followers either fled, were captured, or were killed by the government.74 The most striking aspect of the Taiping Rebellion when it is compared to previous upheavals in traditional China was its total and inflexible radicalism. No previous movement in traditional Chinese history had sought to destroy the traditional institutions of Chinese society. The Taipings turned against Chinese traditions and, in particular, the symbols of Manchu government (which they perceived as demonic) at every possible level. At the local level they destroyed the idols and shrines of popular religion. For example, within their territory most, if not all, Buddhist and Taoist temples were completely destroyed. In addition, the Taipings abolished the practice of Confucianism.75 The Taipings attacked the Manchu government, not because they perceived (as previous rebellions) that it had lost the mandate of heaven, but because they perceived it as an alien and satanic power, the representative of evil and corruption in the world. Indeed, the Taipings perceived of the Manchus as nothing more than the agents and promoters of pernicious Western intervention that brought unwelcome change to China.76 In this respect, they differed from previous rebel movements—the Taipings sought revolution in China, not simply the displacement of existing ruling elites. From a historical perspective, the important legacy of the Taiping Rebellion lies in its role as a harbinger of twentieth-century revolution in China. It paved the way for later revolutionaries by breaking up the Manchu monopoly of government in Peking and engendering a climate of extensive regional independence and the rise of powerful warlords throughout the provincial areas.77 Second, the chaos that developed in the Chinese financial system and its debilitating effects on the imperial government fed the revolutionary nationalist spirit of anti-Manchu movements and provided them with issues and a sense of urgency.78 Finally, and perhaps most


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important the Taipings stood as an inspiration to both Sun Yat-sen and Mao Tse-tung.79 Sun,80 the first president of the new Chinese republic, gave up that office after only three months because he came to realize that his idea of the Three People's Principles could not be immediately carried out in a China still characterized by chaos, foreign domination, and near anarchic conditions.81 His own definition of these principles demonstrates their egalitarian nature and the influence of the Taipings on his personal ideology: The Three People's Principles consist of the People's Nationalism, the People's Sovereignty, and the People's Livelihood. Thefirstprinciple means that all people of the world are equal, and that no race may ever be suppressed and enslaved by another as the Manchus did when they came into China.... When the Han race rose up andfinallydrove them from the throne, this was the implementation of the People's National Revolution. The Principle of the People's Sovereignty means that all men are equal and together form a large family, and that a few may never suppress the many.... The Principle of the People's Livelihood means that the poor and the rich are of identical rank, and that the rich may not suppress and enslave the poor.... The Principle of the People's Livelihood was realized by someone some decades ago, and that was Hung Hsiu-ch'uan. In his Heavenly State of Universal Peace, there was a rule that all those who may be called workers controlled the state and that all goods were public property. This was in every sense the implementation of the Principle of an economic revolution (ching-chi ko-ming ch-i), or of Russian communism today.82 In this way, Sun identified the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom "as a crucial precursor to his own nationalist, anti-Manchu [and thus anti-Ching] dynasty ideology."83 By the time of his death in 1925, Sun had become enamored with the Bolsheviks' achievements in Russia and pinned much of his hope for China's salvation on aid from the Soviet Union.84 Unlike most other early members of the CCP, Mao Tse-tung, largely influenced by the stories told during his youth in his home province of Hunan of the massive peasant support for the Taiping Rebellion and its immense popularity, early on came to favor a peasant-based socialist revolution as opposed to a revolution of the proletariat. To understand Mao Tse-tung, it is necessary to understand the social theories advanced in China at the beginning of the century, the peculiar atmosphere of the times. His Marxism was a later accretion; in the most impressionable years of all he was influenced by the Taipings and by the Chinese revolutionary movements of the past, about which he was extraordinarily well informed .... The chief reason for hisriseto power lies almost certainly in the failure of the three Chinese revolutions, beginning with the Taiping rebellion and ending with the revolution of 1927 [the second was the Republican revolution of 1911 ]. Mao was one of the few who realized how and why they had failed. By sheer will power he made himself the technician of revolt. Carefully, over a long period of years, he prepared himself for the role he desired to play; and from 1924, when hefirstset eyes on Chiang Kai-shek, he realized that he possessed qualities his adversary would never acquire.85

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The similarities of the characteristics of the Chinese Communist movement in the twentieth century to those of the Taiping movement are unmistakable. The egalitarian, communal, and hierarchical organization of all levels of society,86 for example, combined with the asceticism, practicality, and functionalism exhibited by the Maoists was very similar to that demonstrated by the Taipings nearly a century earlier. Both movements enjoyed mass support from intensely frustrated rural populations and were characterized by ideologies inspired by imported Western thought, yet fused with certain traditional symbols and doctrines to create a syncretism that was uniquely Chinese. Finally, both called for sweeping changes in major economic, social, political, and cultural institutions.87 Communist egalitarianism and collective ownership, as well as programs aimed at liberating women, were noticeably similar to several of the basic goals proclaimed by the Taiping revolutionaries. Moreover, both movements were led by charismatic cultfigureswhose powers were perceived as transcendentally ordained. Perhaps most important, both movements envisioned a social order that would do away with the rule of the Chinese gentry and seek "to introduce a monist order in which the state would be all."88 An important and striking parallel exists between the Christian influence on the Taipings and the Marxist influence on Chinese Communists. Both Hung Hsiuch'uan and Mao Tse-tung were profoundly influenced by ideologies that: (1) offered the opportunity for an idealized society and (2) were imported from foreign sources. In both cases, these ideologies were shaped to the needs of the Chinese people to meet the exigencies of the moment.Yet as a result of their significant deviation from orthodoxy, both movements became anathema to the foreign sources of their vision. Western missionaries rejected Hung's claims to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ and profoundly rejected his vulgarization of Christianity. In a similar way, orthodox Marxist-Leninists in Moscow broke with Mao in part as a result of his Sinification of Marxist doctrine. Both Hung and Mao started out with only a rudimentary grasp of the foreign doctrine, yet effectively eliminated the possibility of foreign domination by breaking with customary practices—Hung from the missionaries, Maofromthe Comintern—and adapted their doctrines to fit the needs of and possibilities available at the moment. The suppression of the Taiping Rebellion allowed the traditional order of the Manchu dynasty to reassert itself once more. Nevertheless, it was a Pyrrhic victory that left the imperial government rent and exhausted. After years of putting down internal rebellions as well as the draining effects of foreign intervention, inflation, previous reparation obligations, and a declining economy, the Manchu dynasty was slowly deteriorating. Although it pursued a series of reforms in the latter decades of the nineteenth century, it was never able to fully recover from the damage done by the Taiping Rebellion. The Taiping movement had exposed not only a basic instability in Manchu government policy, but a significant break in the increasingly obsolete Confucian system. Thus, the Taiping Rebellion represents the ultimate manifestation of the disorienting and catastrophic effects of foreign subjugation and domination in nineteenth-century China. "The very fact that so many Chinese


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could abandon their traditional beliefs and embrace such a radically new doctrine as the Taiping religion pointed up the weakness of the old order. The Taiping Rebellion thus marks the beginning of the end of Confucian China."89 By 1898, it was becoming increasingly obvious that the Manchu dynasty, unless it was able to bring about rapid and effective reform, was leading China toward eventual partition and possibly complete subjugation at the hands of foreign powers. The Japanese victory over China in 1895 had recently confirmed China's military, technological, and socioeconomic backwardness.90 In an attempt at quick but meaningful reform of the obviously outmoded Manchu political system, the idealistic young Emperor Kuang-hsu (who had been allowed to nominally assume the throne by his aunt, the empress dowager) and a very small group of advisers, issued new government decrees that called for sweeping improvements. At the centerpiece of these reforms was the establishment of a constitutional-monarchy system of government. In addition, the government now offered to provide all Chinese with a free education as well as to make a concerted effort to clean up state corruption.91 Nonetheless, the so-called one hundred days reform movement was aborted when the inflexible empress dowager, fearing that such reforms would merely open the door of revolution even further, removed the emperor from power and executed some of the more radical reformers. She reassumed the reins of government and sought to conserve Manchu legitimacy until her death in 1908.92 This abrupt ending of the 1898 reform movement was met by a bitter response throughout China. In desperation, the imperial government, in one of the more ironic phases of traditional Chinese history, turned to one of the more powerful (and antidynastic) secret societies—the Boxers—in an attempt to shore up government control of the country.93 The Boxers had begun as a peasant secret society, the Band of Right and Harmony, and were probably an offshoot of the White Lotus system.94 They were centered in the Chihli and Shantung provinces in north China, which had suffered serious agricultural disasters and famines in the period 1896-97, destructive flooding of the Yellow River in 1898, and economic dislocation resulting from foreign intervention into the region.95 In response to these disasters, the Boxers blamed foreign intervention into their region, particularly that of German mining interests, which they believed had upset powerful local sacred spirits.96 But perhaps worst of all, the Boxers were alarmed by the growing number of their fellow Chinese who had seemingly forsaken their traditional beliefs and had converted to Christianity.97 Like many other Chinese secret societies, the Boxers were a millenarian sect that practiced oath taking and the use of charms that seemingly provided invulnerability from danger. In 1899, they announced the imminent arrival of the "ten calamities," a series of catastrophes that they were convinced would immediately precede social salvation.98 Several important features made the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 both unique and, at the same time, a logical manifestation of factors that had begun to take shape

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earlier in the century. As we have seen, foreign provocation of the Chinese had gone on since the late 1830s. It reached its peak in 1898." Under pressure, the Manchu dynasty became increasingly conservative and almost wholly resistant to any type of change. These attitudes were shaped and sustained by the empress dowager herself. She was able to maintain her rapidly deteriorating power base only by appealing to Chinese conservatism and xenophobic pride. Under such circumstances, an upheaval was virtually inevitable. In mid-June 1900, Boxers assaulted Peking and Tientsin. In response, the great powers dispatched 2,100 troops to defend their interests in Peking.100 Ultimately, military forces of the imperialist European powers in China were able to gain control of the rebellious situation and achieved some degree of security by suppressing the Boxer movement. Nonetheless, the price to China was very high. According to the terms of the treaty signed in September 1901 by the imperial government and eleven foreign governments, the treaty port system remained intact, the foreign legation quartered in Peking would be enlarged, fortified, and garrisoned, and some twenty-five Ch'ing forts were designated to be destroyed throughout the country. In addition, another burdensome indemnity of about $333 million was imposed on the government.101 In other words, the foreign domination of China would not only continue but become even more complete as a result of the Boxer Rebellion. This humiliation finally convinced the imperial government that major reforms were necessary to facilitate modernization. Among the more important changes was the establishment of provincial parliaments in 1908.102 Nonetheless, such efforts were far too late to save the crippled monarchy. In the Revolution of 1911, which brought an end to the Manchu dynasty, peasant rebellions organized and led by millenarian secret societies were an important factor. Not only did they collaborate with the Republicans on issues of political and military importance, "there was considerable social and ideological interaction as well." "Indeed, the secret societies and the classes they drew on for their members, showed a remarkable dynamism in the years culminating in the revolution."103 Although their efforts in the Chinese rural areas during the revolution were greatly overshadowed by the success of the Republican movement in the cities, the secret societies, nevertheless, represented well-organized pressure groups that contributed to the eventual collapse of the Ch'ing dynasty through ceaseless peasant disturbance and "anti-Manchu proto-nationalism" as well as by promoting a "Utopian egalitarianism" that came to have widespread appeal.104 THE TRADITION OF THE MESOAMERICAN MAN-GOD Among various Mesoamerican Indian tribes, a tradition of millenarian beliefs predated the arrival of the Spanish in the sixteenth century. According to ancient prophecies that were pervasive in pre-Columbian central Mexico, a part-man, part-god named Ce Acatl Topiltzin, or Quetzalcoatl, the creator of the world, would someday return to reclaim his kingdom, which had been "guarded" by the Aztecs


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since his departure many years before. Indeed, the sixteenth-century Aztec emperor at the time of the Spanish conquest, Moctezuma, who was himself considered by his people to be a god, claimed that he was merely maintaining the empire of Topiltzin-Quetzalcoatl in his absence, until his expected return.105 The legend of Quetzalcoatl provided the foundation for the notion of an Indian man-god who, in the form of Indian royalty, would someday return as the savior of his people.This idea has remained a durable and pervasive one among the descendents of the Aztecs into the twentieth century.106 In the apocalyptic prophecy of the Aztecs, it was believed that the return of Quetzalcoatl would be preceded by signs and omens in the form of social and/or physical disasters. As a result, in the period just prior to the arrival of the Spanish in Mexico, a series of particularly unusual physical signs—comets, earthquakes, and droughts—were widely interpreted by the Aztecs as the foretelling of impending doom for their society. The year 1519 coincided exactly with the end of one such era, or "sun."107 Thus, it was quite logical that the arrival of Herndn Cortes and the Conquistadores in Mexico City was perceived by the Aztecs as the arrival of their savior, Topilitzin-Quetzalcoatl, who was returning to retake possession of his empire.108 In Aztec eschatology, the first creation engendered a paradise on earth. The first "sun" lasted 676 years, but came to an abrupt end. It was followed by a second sun. This put into motion a process in which the world renews itself in a persistent cycle. No matter the length of these cycles in either years, or even centuries, the world "will be inevitably destroyed and that destruction will ineluctably be followed by a new creation, and so on successively."109 "For something genuinely new to begin, the . . . ruins of the old cycle must be completely destroyed," in order to restore the perfection of the ancient Aztec paradise known as "Anahuac."110 It is generally believed that Mexico, beginning with the arrival of the first priests who accompanied the conquistadores at the time of the conquest, may be characterized as a devoutly Catholic country. Nonetheless, a substantial amount of evidence now exists that suggests that this description is not entirely accurate. The Christianity brought to New Spain retained few of its original Old World doctrines or rituals intact. The Franciscan and Dominican friars who brought Christianity to Mexico, seeking to impose their theological conceptions on the Indians, were by and large unsuccessful. The indigenous peoples of Mexico resisted efforts at their conversion in a passive yet nonetheless effective way. In the end, it was the traditional religious practices of the Indians that retained much of their saliency. Ultimately, what emerged was a unique syncretism of European theology and symbols combined with ancient Indian messianism and shamanism. "Priests baptized Indians, but were unable to stop them from elaborating Spanish Catholicism in their own terms."111 If the official religion became Spanish and European, the images and cult practices remained Indian. As a result, the Indians were never thoroughly Christianized, and the native preconquest religious influences have continued to this day to characterize much of Mexican Catholicism.112

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The Franciscan friars who arrived in New Spain did not fully endorse the Augustinian and orthodox Catholic position regarding the millennium. According to the official exegesis of the Church, the millennium had begun with the birth of Christ, an idea originating in Augustine's classic work The City of God. By the sixteenth century, this dogma had come under significant attack by many religious sects and among the Franciscans in particular. Indeed, the Franciscans had been profoundly influenced by the writings of Joachim of Fiore.113 Later, as the Franciscans developed into a large and significant component of the Church, some concessions had to be made to the demands of everyday reality: they penetrated the universities, sought and wielded significant influence, and acquired large amounts of property. Yet many Franciscans refused to accept these changes and strictly adhered to the ideal of absolute poverty. These men—the Franciscan spirituals—represented a minority segment, atfirstwithin the order, and later outside of it. Nonetheless, by the middle of the thirteenth century they had resurrected Joachim's prophecies, which had up to that point in time attracted little attention.114 It is ironic that the prophecies of Joachim of Fiore, embodied in his Divini abbatis Joachim Concordie Novi ac Veteris Testamenti, were first published in Venice in 1519, the same year that Cortes landed on the shores of what would become New Spain. Cortes's discovery of new lands possessing an apparently large native population caused quite a stir in both Spain and Portugal, largely because such discoveries were perceived by many as the fulfillment of Joachim's prophecies, in the sense that mankind was perhaps about to enter a new age. As a result, enthusiastic crowds greeted Cortes when he returned to his homeland. He was generally looked upon as a "truly providential man assigned by God to this great mission of discovery in the New World."115 This evidence suggests that it was not the discovery of new lands for the creation of Spanish colonies that was perceived as the most important aspect of Cortes's voyage. "Rather, the significance of his discovery was its revelation of a new part of humanity and the promise of arichharvest of souls to reward the ardor of the missionaries."116 It confirmed European eschatological hopes for the coming of God's kingdom to earth. The source of these hopes was Joachim's prophecies and their fostering by the Franciscans. Thus, we see the impact of two millenarian doctrines in the discovery of the New World. These doctrines eventually meshed quite effectively to create an important syncretism of beliefs that have had a profound impact on Mexican religious and political history. This convergence of the eschatological hopes of the Aztecs and the Christian millenarianism of the Franciscan missionaries became the foundation of the Mexican national mystique.117 At the cornerstone of this mystique is the symbol of the Virgin of Guadalupe.118 The Virgin of Guadalupe, and the holy place built in her honor at Tepeyac, are surrounded by both an ancient Aztec myth and a colonial-era Indian supernatural experience. In the precolonial period, Tepeyac had been a sacred shrine to the Aztecs. It was there that a temple to the Earth and Fertility Goddess, Tonantzin, or


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Our Lady Mother, had been located.119 In 1531, ten years after the Spanish conquered the area, Juan Diego, a Christianized peasant Indian, saw a vision of the Virgin Mary at Teypeyac in which she spoke to him in the native Nahuatl language. According to contemporary accounts, the Virgin commanded Juan Diego to seek out the archbishop of Mexico and inform him of her desire to see a church built in her honor at the location. After Diego was twice unsuccessful in convincing the clergy of his mission, the Virgin performed a miracle. "She bade Juan Diego pick roses in a sterile spot where normally only desert plants could grow, gathered the roses into the Indian's cloak, and told him to present cloak and roses to the incredulous archbishop."120 Following her instructions, Juan Diego presented his story to a skeptical archbishop. Nonetheless, when Diego "unfolded his tunic the clear image of the Virgin was stamped on it."121 The bishop perceived of this as a miraculous sign. He immediately ordered a shrine built where the vision had appeared. In time, the cult of the Virgin spread throughout New Spain and many temples were erected in her honor.122 It is generally accepted among Mexican historians that the glorification of the Virgin of Guadalupe drew its initial inspiration from the earlier worship of Tonantzin.123 In this way, the Virgin Mary, a European image, was successfully overlaid onto ancient Aztec sacred images, and a new religious figure, the Virgin of Guadalupe, emerged. The cult that came to surround the Virgin filled an important void in the lives of both Indians and Creoles in colonial Mexico: the spirit of the Virgin provided New Spain's syncretic church with an autonomous status. It justified the powerful idea that Mexico represented a special place in the Christian faith. One that provided it with equal spiritual status to that of the separate and distinct European church. Such status guaranteed that the Mexican Indian was not subhuman, as many Spaniards argued during the colonial period. Just as important, the Virgin of Guadalupe came to serve as the preeminent symbolic representation of the major political and religious aspirations of the'Mexican Indians. It restored to them the hope of salvation and gave them assurance that they were just as capable as the white man of receiving Christianity. In this way, the Virgin of Guadalupe defined Indian identity and guaranteed his place in society, here and now. As a result, Mexican nationality has, from the very beginning, been grounded in and defined by a uniquely millenarian event.124 Let it be understood... that all the work, all the suffering, all the troubles that Mexico might have are forgotten, remedied, rewarded, and relieved by the appearance in this land and the coming out of it as from her mysterious and accurate drawing the semblance of God, the image of God that is Mary in her holy image in our Mexican Guadalupe If God for the first image of him that was to appear on earth [created Adam] we can agree and say: that as the Virgin Mary is the most perfect copied image of the original of God... and as in our Mexican Guadalupe hers is so miraculous in circumstances and so unique in this land, prepared, ordered, and carried out the beautiful line in this her Mexican lands, conquered for such glorious purposes one so that in it would appear an image so of God The conquest of this land was because in it was to appear the Virgin Mary in her holy image of Guadalupe.123

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The Virgin of Guadalupe endowed the Mexican people with an historic and sacred destiny. At the political level, the Virgin gave credence to the possibility of a Mexican paradise. One that would be free from the domination of the white man. As a result, the worship of the Virgin united ail Indian groups in Mexico under the umbrella of a common national identity.126 "It reflected the salient social relationships of Mexican Indian life, embodied the emotions they generated, and provided an important vehicle for their expression. In this sense, the Virgin of Guadalupe was the symbolic harbinger of the Indian millennium."127 The Spanish conquest of Mexico had disastrous consequences for the Indians in a variety of ways. First, virulent diseases brought by the white men from Europe led to the extermination of millions of Mesoamericans. For example, in the period between 1519 and 1639, the Indian population of New Spain declined by an astounding 95 percent, from 25 million to a mere 1.3 million, as a direct result of deadly epidemic diseases brought to the New World by Europeans.128 Epidemics of smallpox and other virulent diseases often wiped out entire Indian villages. Only after the 1630s, over one hundred years after the conquest, did the indigenous population of Mexico actually begin to stabilize. Nonetheless, by 1810, the population of those identified as Indians still stood at between only 2.5 and 3 million.129 Second, the Indians of Mexico suffered economic deprivation at the hands of the Spanish colonialists. For example, the primary source of labor for the large Spanish agricultural estates, or haciendas, were Indians who were drawn from those who lived on the hacienda and earned their keep through working the lands or performing other necessary tasks, or those who lived in the surrounding communities. The purpose of the hacienda was to be a successful business; to produce agricultural products and livestock for profit. Nevertheless, all of them eventually became self-contained social units around which much of rural life revolved. Laborers were usually paid in kind, which had the effect of binding them even further to the hacienda system. Additionally, many Indian communities lost their lands to the haciendas.130 Third, wherever and whenever the opportunity presented itself, the Indian in New Spain was exploited in a ruthless manner by the white Spaniard. For example, colonial authorities would frequently jail Indians merely for their failure to pay proper tribute to their employer or for simply disobeying him.131 The Spaniards believed that the Indians must be "Hispanicized" for their own welfare and social development. They sought to remake the Indian communities in the image of that of the white man. The first step in this process was the attempt at discrediting and ultimately destroying their gods.132 In reality, the goal of Hispanicization was to eradicate the Indian languages, culture, and economic system—in short, the Spanish elites sought to destroy the indigenous way of life.133 Only by the crazy time, by the crazy priests, was it that sadness entered us, that Christianity entered us. Because the very Christian arrived here with the true God; but that was the beginning of our misery, the beginning of tribute, the beginning of begging, the reason for the hidden discord to reveal itself, the beginning of fights with firearms, the beginning of


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the outrages, the beginning of the plundering of everyone, the beginning of the slavery of debt, the beginning of debts stuck on one's back, the beginning of the continuous struggle, the beginning of suffering. It was the beginning of the work of the Spaniards and the priests.134 Most likely in response to these disastrous circumstances and a profound sense of victimization on the part of the Indian population, various man-gods emerged throughout the colonial period in Mexico engendering specific episodes of millenarian activity. In 1536, Martin Ocelotl of Texcoco was tried by the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in Mexico City for a series of offenses specifically involving his regular practice of religious sorcery. Ocelotl claimed that he was an ancient Indian prophet who had, in the pre-Hispanic period, been a personal adviser to Moctezuma. Indeed, he asserted that he had warned the emperor of the imminent and abrupt end of the Aztec "sun," or religious cycle. He was returning now to tell those who would heed his message of the impending end of the Franciscans and the Spanish "sun."135 Two brothers of Martin Ocelotl were also denounced by the Inquisition in 1537. Specifically, Andres Mixcoatl travelled from village to village in the Texcoco region claiming he was god: This Andres passed through the ward of Atliztaca and asked the Indians for incense and paper to prepare sacrifices andritesof sorcery and they gave him these things at once; then in the evening, he summoned all the people, preached to them, and said: "have no fear, your maize will not frost; all that you have sown will come up well." Therefore, all the Indians had faith in him, for he had made his conjurations and had preached.136 At his interrogation by the Inquisition in Mexico City on September 14, 1537, Andres Mixcoatl told the story of how he came to be a god: I often preached in plain daylight at T\ilancingo, Huayacocotla, lYitutepac, Apan, and many other places. It was at Tepehualco, about four years ago, that I became a god. Since there was no rain, during the night I made magic incantations with copal and other things. The next day it rained a lot. That is why they took me for a god ..I I declare that when I engag in these superstitions and magic practices, the devil spoke to me and said: "Do this, do that. At Tepetlaoztoc ceremonies, I offered copal; it started to rain, and they acknowledged me a a god—it must have been three years ago.137 Both Martin Ocelotl and Andres Mixcoatl were identified by their contemporarm ies as nahualli.138 They both exhibited the typical traits of the native messiah who frequently appeared during the colonial period and afterward—an Indian savior, inspired by catastrophe, who assimilated ancient indigenous religious images with European Catholicism.139 Millenarianism was an important manifestation of the many conflicts that plagued New Spain; racial conflicts, rich versus poor, educated versus uneducated,

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and rural versus urban. As in the Chinese case, these episodes of millenarianism always tended to emerge following periods of physical and/or social disaster. In addition to the appearance of various man-gods during the colonial period, another important manifestation of millenarianism in New Spain was the emergence of Utopian agricultural communes, although the idea for such social experiments was not a new one and actually predated the colonial era. "In central and southern Mexico the Utopia of a free association of rural clans was very ancient. In various forms it had moved villagers long before the Spaniards came." 140 One of the earliest of these communities to appear during the colonial era was at Santa Fe, just west of Mexico City, in the 1530s. Vasco de Quiroga, a Franciscan priest, assisted by local Indians, established a small commune that established communal property, declared private property to be sinful, and wholly rejected human authority, relinquishing all sovereignty to God.141 Between 1553 and 1588, the Portuguese missionary Fray Pedro de Barrientos, transformed much of the region of Chiapas into a religious and agricultural commune which "was a model of theocratic law and orderliness."142 Nonetheless, in 1584, a significant scandal and brief rebellion in the region shook both the commune and the local Church leadership. Since the introduction of Christian missionaries into Chiapas in the 1540s, the native tribal chiefs had converted to Christianity "with the most genuine sincerity and eagerness."143 As a result, the native villagers had also followed passively. One chief in particular, Juan Atonal, the local alcalde, or mayor, enjoyed "an apparently unshakable friendship" with Barrientos and had been a devout member of the commune and the church for over thirty years. Notwithstanding, it was revealed in the 1570s that "Atonal had organized several of his associates into a cofradia" (confraternity, or brotherhood) that worshipped the devil. "In the aforementioned town of Su-chiapa," wrote the bishop in charge of investigating the episode, Pedro de Feria, there existed a cofradia of 12 Indians who styled themselves the 12 apostles, and they walke abroad at night and traveled from mountain to mountain, and from cave to cave... and the took with them two women, one of whom they called Santa Maria, and the other Magdalen with whom... they undertook certain ceremonies, saying that by these means they . . . became spiritualized and transformed into gods.144 In contrast to de Feria, who characterized this incident as an isolated case of "religious backsliding," it appears that Atonal's movement developed a rather considerable following among the natives of Chiapas, largely because it exploited a pent-up frustration over the demise, or at least the assimilation, of native beliefs into the doctrines of Christianity, and the domination of their villages by the European missionaries whom they came to resent. Atonal and his followers seemed to declare that they would rescue their native ways from the deceiving friars and prelates who now dominated their lives, "and once that urgent task had been accomplished, once they had attained God's grace and Saint Mary's favor, then as


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loyal subjects of the crown they would govern their new kingdom in their own right."145 In the same region a century and a half later, the Tzeltal Revolt of 1712, in Cancuc, Chiapas, erupted when Maria de la Candelaria, a young Tzeltal woman, claiming to have been inspired by the image of the Virgin, told her followers that both God and the king had died. The time had arrived, she declared, for the native peoples of the province to rise up against their Spanish overlords, to avenge their past sufferings and reestablish their true religion. In response, the villagers attempted to overthrow the established order within their community. "The people of Cancuc and neighboring towns gave themselves to the surprising task of building, in an environment dominated by Spanish political power, [an] Indian Utopia: a society governed by religious and civil Indian authorities."146 Within a matter of days, word of the uprising spread to nearby villagers and was greeted with enthusiasm. According to the alcalde of Tabasco, in an account documented at the time, a group of rebels asserted to him that "it was God's will that [the Virgin] should come only for his Native children to free them from the Spaniards and the ministers of the Church, and that the Angels would plant and tend their milpas [subsistence farms], and that the King of Spain was dead, and that they must choose another."147 It is important to note that the local bishop, along with the encomenderos (holder of Indian pueblos from which he collected tribute payments) and regidores (town councilmen appointed by the local government) had ruthlessly exploited the Tzeltals of Cancuc.148 In 1761,149 a radical Indian demonstration in opposition to Spanish colonial rule occurred in the indigenous region around Morelos. The leader of this demonstration, an illiterate, alcoholic peasant named Antonio Perez, had been deeply influenced by Catholic missionaries. The syncretism of Christian eschatological teachings and indigenous traditional religions brought forth a form of millenarianism which is clearly evident in the apocalyptic prophecies of Antonio Perez: In two years and five months, the world should be coming to an end and Pascal [a close friend of Antonio Perez] should be king.... An end must be put to the payment of tribute to the king [of Spain], which serves to fatten the Spanish, and that is why the world is coming to an end.... There will be an earthquake, the earth will begin to boil, in eight days all the converted pueblos should meet in the cave, and then the earth will begin to shake.... [ W]e alone will survive, while the Spanish [and] all the gachupines [whites of European birth] and the gente de razon [educated peoples] will bum, the archbishop will be chained up so that devils will carry him off, all the riches will be consumed by fire. [They will then] be able to unearth holy Christ, who [has] been buried for a thousand years.150 Three important conclusions may be drawn when one closely examines these episodes of millenarianism in colonial New Spain. First, at their foundation was a messianic hope of salvation, framed in an apocalyptic conception of history, resulting from a syncretism of European Catholicism and traditional Aztec and

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Mayan cult practices. Second, these beliefs were uniquely Mexican and came to be associated with Indian identity. Finally, these episodes of millenarianism were all direct responses by indigenous Mexican peasants to physical and social disasters— drought, famine, virulent disease, crop failure, loss of communal lands, the disintegration of their culture, and a significant alteration of their religious practices—all blamed on Spanish colonial disruption and the subsequent domination of their way of life. All were characterized by extreme hostility, resentment, and racial hatred toward the Spanish and their descendants in New Spain.151 Each of these movements sought a restoration of the pre-Hispanic, Indian-dominated culture they now idealized as a Golden Age. The presence of Indian man-gods in the Mexican colonial era and the influence they were able to assert over indigenous populations had their roots in ancient Indian traditions and specific myths regarding the concept of power. Throughout their history the Nahua had dreamed of and actually sought out strong leaders whom they looked upon as gods to guide them through periods of difficulty: The man-god had the prerogative of communicating with the tutelary god, the calpulteotl, of striking up a dialogue that was pursued by the paths of ecstasy, of possession or hallucination: "in him the god arises.*' The pact made in the course of these dialogues was the act that formed the basis of the power: through it the protective numen, the altepetl iyol [the heart of the pueblo], undertook to lend his efficacious protection to the people who revered him.152 In this sense, the source of the man-god and his power was the people themselves. It was their needs, in time of collective catastrophe or severe stress, and their millenarian belief that such a deliverer would appear among them, that created the potential for and the legitimacy of the figure of the man-god. This is an important idea that we will explore in greater detail in the next chapter. The Mexican war for independence from Spain, which began with a series of popular rebellions around 1810, was led by white native-born provincial elites in New Spain. These rebel leaders sought to control their own political destiny and free themselves from European Spanish domination. Nevertheless, the fundamental composition of the rebel armies led by these elites was not one of predominately Mexican-born whites or even of racially mixed groups. Rather, the armies consisted primarily of Indian peasants from rural villages all over the central part of the country.153 In contrast to the well-educated and cosmopolitan Creole elites, these peasants were overwhelmingly illiterate and often spoke only an Indian language. Indeed, there appears to be a great deal of evidence that these two groups held very different beliefs and socioeconomic goals regarding the future of an independent Mexico, "goals which were actually incompatible."154 The singular common aspiration and the notion that thus bound them together in a common cause was a commitment to the overthrow of Spanish colonialism in New Spain.


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The Indian peasant armies, which became largely responsible for fighting the Mexican war for independence, were, to no small extent, inspired by a millenarian hope of restoring the Golden Age of pre-Hispanic Mexico.155 Episodes of millenarianism were quite common both preceding and during this period of sociopolitical upheaval. An important millenarian prophet at this time, Jose Bernardo Herrada, a native Indian from the city of Tlaxcala, was active in the region in and around the province of Durango in the years 1800-1801. Herrada travelled the countryside proclaiming the imminent advent of an Indian millennium. In his prophecy, effective political authority in Mexico would soon pass from the hands of the white colonial government of the Spanish to those of the Indians. At the head of this new indigenous government would be a dark-skinned king.156 It is clear from Herrada's pronouncements that at the source of his motivations lay a marked racial hostility, even hatred, toward gachupines (whites of European birth). His message was filled with racist, antiwhite denunciations. These were most likely a manifestation of a much wider, collective sense of social disaster felt by most, if not all, of the indigenous population of colonial Mexico: "the integral deterioration of the Indians' identity through the systematic decline of their village system." Thus, there was increasing racial tension, linked to socioeconomic conflicts of long standing, "which in the peculiar alchemy of popular action and ideology, transformed a generalized hostility toward whites into a virulent hatred of gachupines."157 The leader of the Mexican war for independence, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, and his principal general, Father Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon, were perceived by many of their peasant followers as messiahs, or as men somehow guided by Providence.158 "The priest [Hidalgo] is a saint... the holy Virgin speaks to him several times a day . . . the gachupines are Jews, and . . . those who are killed by them in the war or executed as criminals are martyrs." 159 Both Hidalgo and Morelos despised the Spanish and possessed a strong desire for independence, which was to be achieved through incessant and, in their minds, justifiable, violence. Perhaps the best testimony to the millenarian climate of the war is contained in Morelos's speech before the opening session of the Congress ofChilpancingoin 1813: This oppressed people, so like the people of Israel overwhelmed by the Pharaoh, weary of suffering, has stretched its hands toward Heaven and made its cry heard before the throne of the Eternal, and the Eternal, pitying its misfortunes, has opened His mouth and decreed the freedom of Anahuac [a mythical Aztec Utopian paradise] before the court of his seraphim. The spirit who animated the enormous amorphous mass of ancient Chaos, who infused life into it with a breath, and who created this marvelous world, that spirit has now given an electric shock to our hearts, has caused the blindfold to fall from our eyes, and has changed the shameful apathy in which we lay into terrible and warlike fury. It was in the village of Delores that this voice sounded, a voice like unto thunder.160

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Morelos successfully raised the Mexican independence movement to a supernatural level, a movement that was seemingly being guided by God's own hand. For example, his use of the word "Anahuac" was not without purpose. He sought to associate the cause he led with the traditional and durable millenarian yearnings for a Utopian past.161 Indeed, "the entire atmosphere of the war for independence was wrapped up in apocalyptic imagery and the pervasive belief that the Indian millennium had truly arrived."162 In this sense the Mexican War of Independence was another in a series of holy wars against Spanish domination, the rebellious legacy of the Indians who had placed their faith in the Virgin of Cancuc or believed in the apocalyptic prophecies of Antonio Perez. They were led by what they believed were new men of divine inspiration and guided by their unwavering faith in their unique and chosen national destiny that was provided to them by the symbol of the Virgin of Guadalupe. They sought now to finally establish their expected Indian paradise, one in which they could "continue to be Indians, men integrated into the egalitarian traditions and solidarity of their communities."163 Mexican Indian uprisings that were explicitly millenarian in form broke out frequently in the postindependence era. In 1832-1834, for example, a major peasant upheaval began in Asuncion Nochixtlan, Oaxaca, a region that had been affilicted for decades by village-hacienda land disputes. Eventually the revolt spread, first across southwestern Mexico, into southern Michoacan, and eventually as far north as Yautepec in Morelos. These uprisings involved the inhabitants of numerous villages and pueblos who were angry over the loss of their communal lands seized by local and foreign-controlled haciendados. Repeated court decisions, based upon the various anti-clerical laws, did not support the Indians' efforts to hold onto legal possession of large tracts of collective landholdings. At the heart of the conflict was the fact that many of the lands legally identified as "unoccupied" church property by the government were, "in reality, local communal properties."164 Possessing a profoundly millenarian character, this revolt sought to ultimately "re-establish the Aztec empire in a magnificent new order under the aegis of an Indian prince with seven wives."165 Yet the lack of effective leadership, combined with rather vague objectives, doomed the movement to nothing more than ineffective outbursts of random violence. Nonetheless, these rebellions established a pattern of millenarian peasant revolt that continued throughout the nineteenth century. Indeed, in 1842-1845, in the same area of southwestern Mexico, an even larger peasant war broke out that possessed many of the characteristics of the 1910 revolution.166 During the years 1868-1870, immediately following the reemergence of the liberals in Mexico, more peasant Indian violence and unrest returned to the areas of the South, "including pueblos in the states of Chiapas, Morelos, Mexico, Oaxaca, Puebla, Tabasco, Tlaxcala, Veracruz, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosi, Queretaro, Guanajuato, Michoacan, and Jalisco."167 The largest and most significant of these uprisings was led by the revolutionary anarchist Julio Chavez Lopez, whose main force numbered around fifteen hundred men who were active in the eastern edge of the Valley of Mexico, in a region that


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spanned as far south as Morelos, then eastward into Puebla, Tlaxcala, and Veracruz and north into Hidalgo.168 A farm worker and tenant farmer, Chavez Lopez was a devoted follower of the political and social philosophy of a Greek Utopian socialist and apostle of Charles Fourier, Plotino Rhodakanaty, who had arrived in Mexico in 1861 with the aim of translating his ideas into agrarian communes. In 1865, Rhodakanaty had founded the School of Light and Socialism with the support of the Mexican anarchist Francisco Zalacosta.169 In 1868, Chavez Lopez issued a series of revolutionary agrarian programs aimed at assisting the indigenous peoples of central Mexico.The most important of these, the Manifesto to the Poor and Oppressed of Mexico and the World, was most likely written by recent anarchist graduates of the Coligio de San Ildefonso. It denounced the exploitation of the peasantry by the landowners, the Church, and the government.170 The most important cause of the Chavez Lopez Revolt was a violent response to land enclosure. Yet its manifestation was far greater. It initiated the beginning of ideological agrarian rebellion in southwestern Mexico and effectively resonated with the Indian peasants' millenarian yearnings for the overthrow of the central government and the establishment of a communalist Utopia. "Its consistent proagrarian worker and independent village and anti-central government and landed estate ideology established the fundamental demands for peasant insurrection." The Chavez Lopez revolt planted the seeds of a peasant movement "that held through the Zapatista revolution in 1910."171 The Chavez Lopez movement blamed the Diaz government, the clergy, foreign business interests, and large landowners for the difficulties experienced by the Indian peasant population. "It called for the overthrow of the government, locally controlled land redistribution, and the re-establishment of village autonomy—the 'municipio libre.' "172 In 1869, Tzotzil Indians in the state of Chiapas murdered three Creole priests, massacred the Creole inhabitants of several rural towns, and took control of the city of San Cristobal Las Casas. This incident became known as the Cuscat Rebellion, named for Pedro Diaz Cuscat, its principal leader.173 Like the Tzeltal Revolt in the same region in 1712, the Cuscat Rebellion actually began as a local religious revitalization movement. It was only after Creole authorities attempted to suppress the movement and arrest its leaders that it developed into a full-blown political revolt to eliminate the Creole population of the Chiapas highlands.174 The Indian name for the movement, the War of St. Rose, brought attention to its religious origin and character. The goal of the movement was largely to bring legitimacy to the cult of St. Rose, a Virgin cult similar to that which had emerged in the early eighteenth century in the area.175 In both cases religious revitalization immediately preceded the creation of an ethnocentric political ideology. In addition, both cults were inspired by female sacred images and were organized along traditional cofradia lines. In both cases, "it was only after the promoters of the cults

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had been frustrated in their efforts to legitimate themselves in the eyes of the Catholic clergy that they decided to reject Creole priests altogether and restore the fundamentals of traditional cult practices in a newly revised version."176 It is important to note that Mexican independence in 1821 had brought little change to the highlands of Chiapas. Racially motivated attitudes, practices, and hostilities, for example, remained a problem well into the second half of the nineteenth century. The Indians' situation after 1821 was, if anything, worse than it had been during the colonial period. "Royal checks on local authorities, which had traditionally suppressed the exploitation of the Indians by the Creoles were eliminated with the advent of independence. As a result, Creole exploitation of the indigenous population increased, along with racial tensions."177 In the 1890s, localized millenarian peasant revolts began to increase in frequency in many of the indigenous areas of Mexico.178 The desperation of the native Indians caused by the disruption of their social and economic way of life engendered a religious millenarian movement that featured cult images, trances, and Utopian visions.179 The primary inspiration for the Tomochic Rebellion was provided by the Indian prophetess, Teresa Urrea de Caborra of Sonora, also known as Santa Teresa by her followers. "Her visions, like the contemporary escapist Ghost Dance religion [of the Sioux Indians on the North American plains], could be shared through trances. While in such an entranced state, her beleaguered adherents believed that they could see Utopia—[and the foreign] intruders would go away."180 THE DURABLE POWER OF THE HIDDEN IMAM The modern Islamic world is divided into two primary theological groupings; the Sunnis and the Shias. This schism traces its roots to the period following the death of Mohammed in A.D. 637, when a dispute broke out over who was to become the prophet's rightful successor. On the one hand, Shi'a Islam, and specifically, its largest sect, the Twelvers, put their faith in the divine character of a hereditary line of infallible Imams (divinely chosen leaders of Islam) who are direct descendants of the prophet Mohammed through the marriage of his daughter Fatima (Mohammed's only child) and his cousin AH. Shi'ites believe that Ali was chosen personally by Mohammed to assume the leadership of the Islamic movement.181 "They were convinced that only a leader that possessed a degree of charisma close to that of Mohammed would be able to lead the community 'to an ideal Islamic society.' Who could be better qualified for such a crucial task than his own family members, who would have inherited his charisma."182 As a result, leadership succession in the nascent movement assumed utmost importance.183 According to Twelver Shi'a doctrine, the first Imam was Ali, succeeded by his two sons, al-Hasan and, later, al-Husayn. They were followed by a succession of nine others, ending with the disappearance of the twelfth (or "Hidden") Imam, while he was still a youth, in AD. 873-874. The Hidden Twelfth Imam, whom it is believed


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entered a state of occultation in AD. 940, is expected by T\velvers to return as Mahdi at the end of time.184 Theological conflicts created by differing interpretations of basic texts and sacred writings are common to all religions. Nonetheless, the Sunni-Shi'a division in Islam is far more explosive than a mere theoretical debate or scriptural dispute. This is because, in addition to a religious debate, the issues surrounding the split have immediate political overtones. Islam is not only an apocalyptic faith that brings comfort to the weary and soothes the pain of those who suffer. Its distinctive characteristic is the fact that it represents a model for how to live one's life, not simply a collection of doctrines on how to worship God. As a result, different explanations of the teachings of Islam immediately manifest themselves in political conflict. In no small way, this accounts for the enduring nature of the conflict between Shias and Sunnis.185 For example, foreign, non-Islamic intervention into Shi'a culture has historically been portrayed as satanic, wicked, and evil. "The Shi'a expectation for the end of tyranny and wickedness through the establishment of justice by a descendent of the Prophet means not merely a hope for a better future, but also a re-evaluation of present social and historical life."186 Shi'ism is believed, by its adherents, to be a comprehensive guide to a life of righteousness, and one that is subordinate to no other set of principles: secular or theological. Shi'as have always believed that as long as the Hidden Imam remains in occultation then there is no real foundation for political, social, or theological power in the world. As a result, the ulama have generally adopted a subdued attitude toward secular affairs. For example, they have tended to tolerate the temporal rule of secular monarchical governments in Iran, as long as these governments did not infringe upon or seemingly violate, Shi'a doctrine and Islamic law (sharia).187 Traditional Shi'ites do not believe that humans have the power to create a paradise on earth through their own efforts. Such a paradise was only to be ushered in through the return of the Hidden Imam. As a result, traditional Shi'ism became a faith grounded in a profound sense of helplessness; a religion of mourning, with institutionalized manifestations of grief and suffering. This sense of helplessness is best symbolized in Shi'ite ritual by the martyrdom of Imam Husayn (the third Imam, a grandson of Mohammed, who died while fighting for the cause of Shi' ism at Karbala in AD 680).188 The early Islamic period was dominated by the Sunni-Shi'a split, which often became violent. Indeed, a number of messianic-inspired revolts broke out over the issue of political control of the Islamic state. These revolts were frequently carried out in the name of the Islamic martyrs, primarily Hasayn and Husayn, but also later Imams. The rebels who participated in these movements believed that the leader they were following was the Mahdi, who would destroy the present sociopolitical system and replace it with one based on Shi'a values and justice.189 As a result, in its earliest stage, the concept of the Imamate in Shi'a Islam came into being largely as a consequence of social anxiety and political dissent.190

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Gradually, this drive for a "just social order and the ideal of a Utopian world free from oppression" transformed Shi'ism from a political movement into a distinctly millenarian religious sect.191 This religio-political ideology of Twelver Shi'ism is a "futuristic, idealistic one." Its final goal is the fulfillment of the human dream of a paradise on earth. Only "through the reign of the Imams" will "the dream of the paradise on earth will be realized."192 The Occultation of the Twelfth Imam, Mohammed al-Mahdi, is divided into two separate historical phases. In thefirstphase, from AD. 874 to 941, he is believed to have maintained secret communications with his followers through the use of four designated messengers or agents (Safirs). This period is known as the Lesser or Short Occultation. In the second period, he discontinued all contact with the material world and began his complete Occultation. "By divorcing the Imamate from the temporal world and its political sphere, the Shi'ite jurists opened the door to the paradoxical justification of supporting a wide variety of dynasties, as long as they proved able to enforce order and justice."193 Beginning in the fourteenth century, numerous millenarian revolts have occurred in Iran.194 Around 1384, for example, a self-proclaimed prophet who claimed to be the Twelfth Imam, Fadlu'llah Astarabadi, founded the Hurufi sect of Shi'a Islam. Through a development of the "mystical significance of numbers, letters, and the parts of the body, the Hurufis believed that they were able to reveal the true inner meaning of the Quran and the religious observances of Islam." Although Fadlu'llah was executed by the Timurid monarchy in 1403, his messianic doctrines continued under his successor.195 In 1425, rebellion emerged in northeastern Iran when a local elite, Khwaja Ishaq Khatlani, asserted that a young member of his tribe was the returned Imam. The rebellion was ultimately suppressed and Khwaja Ishaq and eighty tribesmen were executed, but the young man designated as the Imam, and a descendant of Mohammed, was spared and succeeded Khwaja Ishaq as sheik. "It appears that for a long time he was reluctant to declare his Mahdihood publicly. His followers, on the other hand, were firmly convinced that he was the expected Imam, and had visions of him."196 The ascendance to power of the Safavid dynasty in 1501 was accompanied by the establishment of TVelver Shi'ism as the Iranian state religion. Indeed, the founder of the Safavid dynasty, Isma'il I, claimed he was the incarnation of the Mahdi and the returned messiah.197 Although it was only gradually adopted by the people as the predominate faith, Twelver Shi'ism "came to form the basis for an effective religious nationalism, marking off the mass of the Iranians from their Ottoman and Central Asian neighbors, who were predominately Sunni "198 In an effort to properly train the Iranian peoples in the true path of Shi'ism, the Safavids recruited Twelver Shi'a religious scholars from what is now Lebanon, Bahrain, and Iraq to teach their doctrines. In the process, Isma'il eventually abandoned his claims to be the returned Hidden Imam and asserted that he was a successor of the Four Deputies, who had communicated the Hidden Imam's desire and thoughts to all believers during the Lesser Occultation. This effective fusion of


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Safavid royal power with the divine authority of Shi'ism came to be generally accepted. As a result, during the period of Safavid rule (1501-1722) the Twelver Shi'a ulama of Iran rarely questioned the legitimacy of the Safavid Shahs, and supported their rule throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.199 Following the death of Safavid Shah Isma'il II in 1577, a set of rebellions occurred that were triggered by rumors that he had, in fact, not died but gone into "concealment" and would soon reappear. In time, a number of "pseudo-Isma'ils" appeared—one in Sabsavr, and another in Hamadar. The most important appeared in Kuh Giluyeh and was able to build a following of over 10,000 men. "He became known as Shah-e Qalandar and also as Shah Isma'il-e Qatil, captured territory bordering on Dizful and Shushtar, struck coins in his name, and ruled 'with utmost ease and felicity' for some years until he was captured and beheaded in 1592."200 These outbreaks of millenarian rebellion during the thirteenth through the sixteenth centuries in Iran were characterized by a constant theme; each was led by a charismatic prophet who perceived that the followers of Mohammed had deviated from the rightful laws of Islam and needed to be brought back to the true path. In this sense these movements were vague, backward-looking, and conservative. They sought to recapture what they perceived as a prior Islamic Golden Age—which, they believed, had been lost—through the implementation of a strict adherence to the principles laid out in the Quran. THE BABI REVOLT In 1844, almost exactly one thousand lunar years after the occultation of the Twelfth Imam, Shi'ite millenarianism, after centuries of relative inactivity, erupted in one of the more significant insurrections of the traditional era in Iran: the Babi movement. As did previous Shi'a messianic movements, Babism arose during a period of social and religious stress in Iran and represented a spin-off sect of the eighteenth-century Shaykhi movement. Centered in the shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala in Ottoman-controlled Iraq, Shaykhism was founded by an Arab Shi'a cleric, Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i (17531826). In its early years, Shaykhism retained the sympathy of many leading members of the ulama. Nonetheless, by the time of the Shaykh's death it was considered by many as a separate school of Shi'ism. Indeed, early Shaykhism may be seen as an attempted bridge between traditional Shi'a doctrines and the primary intellectual traditions of the contemporary world of early nineteenth-century Iran. Similar to Erasmus and the Christian Humanists of sixteenth-century Europe, it appears that Shaykh Ahmad tried to combine Shi'a theology with contemporary philosophy and to reconcile religious dogma with scientific reason.201 At the very center of the Shaykh's teachings was the belief that it was essential for Shi'ism to be purified by a return to the infallible sources of guidance, that is, the Imams. Nonetheless, there was a widespread belief that the true essence of God's teachings was outside of the intellectual reach and comprehension of ordinary humans. As a result, intermediaries were necessary for man to gain access to divine teachings and

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esoteric knowledge. The Shaykhis believed that God's reign on earth was always present through such intermediaries, known as Babs. The Bab was the "door" between humans and the world of the Imam. "These holy, infallible, and sinless beings represented the manifestations of God's grace to humankind, and as such they embodied the single important refuge for all things created by God."202 A particularly controversial component of Shaykhism was its eschatological teachings. Indeed, it was on the basis of these teachings that Shaykh Ahmad was eventually excommunicated by the ulama. In contrast to orthodox Shi'a beliefs, Shaykh Ahmad taught that on the day of judgment, creation would return not to God as its source but, rather, to the Primal Will (the instructor of humankind). In other words, the salvation of humankind at the end of time would take place not in the temporal body but, rather, in a "subtle body" which would come into being in the realm of Hurqalya \ a sort of "interworld between materialism and the realm of heaven." Shaykh Ahmad taught that there were in fact two heavens and two hells, one each in this world and the next, and that the achievement of paradise in this world was possible merely through one's personal acceptance of the infallibility of the Hidden Imam.203 Upon the death of Shaykh Ahmad, the Iranian-born Sayyid Kazim Rashti, who had been designated by the Shaykh as his legitimate and authorized successor, became the one who was responsible for furthering the teachings of Shaykhism. Indeed, it was a result of Sayyid Kazim's efforts that a truly separate congregation began to form around Shaykhism and the movement began to thrive. A considerable number of adherents were gained throughout Iran, as well as in the southern region of Iraq. Nonetheless, Sayyid Kazim's eventual death in 1843, without his naming a successor, left the movement and its disciples in a state of turmoil and confusion. Over the following months, numerous claims of successorship were advanced by several of the Sayyid's leading disciples, and several rivalries emerged. Indeed, the esoteric pronouncements of Kazim to members of the movement in the months just preceding his death contributed to the confusion and conflict over his successor: During the last days of his life, Haji' Seyyid Kazim spoke of the approaching advent of the Ka'im, or Imam Mahdi, but would not describe the signs whereby he should be known, further than by stating that he would be a youth, not trained in the learning of the schools, and of the race of Hashim. Though warned of his approaching death by the interpretation of a dream concerning himself... he did not nominate any one to succeed him, so that when he died, his disciples were left in doubt as to whom they should choose to take their master's place.204 Among those claiming to be the successor to Sayyid Kazim was a young merchant from Shiraz named Sayyid Muhammad Ali. Ali had been a devoted student of Kazim for a just a few months at Karbala, but in 1840 he returned to Shiraz, where he married and appeared to resettle back into the family business. Nonetheless, in 1844 Ali experienced a number of religious-inspired visions. In the most dramatic of these he saw the severed head of the Imam Husayn, "drops of


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whose blood he drank and from the grace of which," as he later wrote, "my breast was filled with convincing verses and mighty prayers [and, the spirit of God having] permeated and taken possession of my s o u l . . . the mysteries of His revelation were unfolded before my eyes in all their glory."205 Perhaps the most complete account surrounding the claims of Sayyid Muhammad Ali comes from the writings of E. G. Browne.206 By dint of dwelling on these ideas, and concentrating all his thoughts on the Imams, the unseen dispensers of God's will, Mirza' Ali' Muhammad [Sayyid Muhammad Ali] becomes convinced that he enjoys the favour of a special communication with them. His teacher, Haji' Seyyid Kazim, dies, and his disciples are left in doubt as to who is to succeed him. Of the exact sequence of events it is difficult to judge, by reason of the various accounts. According to the Babi historian, Mulla' Huseyn of Bushraweyh (who afterward played so prominent a part in the Babi movement) went to Shiraz from Karbala' to be cured of a palpitation of the heart.... On arriving there, he enquired for the house of Mirza' Ali' Muhammad, who had been his friend and fellow student at Karbala', and finding his way there, knocked at the door, which was opened by the latter himself, who welcomed his old friend, and conducted him into the house. After the customary compliments and enquiries, Mirza' Ali Muhammad said: "Is it not the case that you Sheykhis believe that it is necessary that after the death of the departed Seyyid some one should take his place? It is now five months since he died. After him who is his successor?" Mulla' Huseyn replied, "[W]e have not yet recognized anyone." Mirza' Ali* Muhammad said, "[WJhat sort of person must he be?" After a little reflection, Mulla* Huseyn described the qualities and attributes which must be found in him. "Do you behold these signs in me?" asked the Bab. Mulla' Huseyn knew that Mirza' Ali' Muhammad had only studied at Karbala for about two months, and had not while there shown any signs of an unusual degree of knowledge, besides having received only a rudimentary education previously. He was greatly astonished at the question, and replied, "I see none of these signs in you." Shortly afterwards he finds a commentary on the Suratu'lBakara lying on the shelf, takes it up and reads a little, and is surprised at the new meaning it discloses. He asks Mirza' Ali' Muhammad, "Whose book is this?" but the latter only replies, "a youthful tyro has written it, and he shows forth exceeding knowledge and greatness." Next day they have another similar conversation, and the Bab again asks Mulla' Huseyn if he sees in him the signs of spiritual leadership. The latter marvels at the persistent way he returns to this point, and determines to convince him of his deficient learning by asking him some questions. To his amazement, these are answered with surprising readiness and clearness; nay, even his inward thoughts and doubts seem to be divine and answered by the Bab. He is astonished, yet unwilling to believe in this unlettered youth, whom he has always looked on as so inferior in knowledge to himself. Finally, however, he is convinced, and accepts the doctrine of the Bab with an earnestness and sincerity to which his subsequent deeds bear ample witness. Once convinced, Mulla* Huseyn does not rest idle. He hastens to inform his fellow-disciples, who are still in doubt as to whom they should choose as a successor to their late teacher; many of these come to Shiraz, and after more or less hesitation accept a new creed. Thus was formed the first nucleus of the Babis.207 Ali's preaching included strong attacks on the corruption of the Iranian clergy. He clearly promoted the traditional Islamic concept of the jihad (holy war) and called upon the Babis to prepare to "conquer the countries and their people for the

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pure faith of God." He chided his followers to accumulate weapons so as to prepare for the "day of slaughter when God would kill the unbelievers, and the Imams and angelic hosts would aid them in battle and their martyrs would receive their due reward " Largely in response, the Bab was imprisoned by the leading Iranian ulama in 1847, and a series of Babi revolts began in 1848. Between 1848 and 1850, some four or five thousand Babis died in fierce clashes with Iranian state troops.208 The Bab and many of his prominent followers were executed in 1850, and executions and persecutions of the movement continued thereafter.209 "The Babi movement came to pose a clear challenge to the entire religious and political order in Iran. It appeared effectively as a new religion and, to the ulama and the state authorities, as a source of insurrection."210 Although Babism had originated as a faction within Shaykhism in the period of confusion following Sayyid Kazim's death, the radical nature of the Bab's pronouncements and his radical interpretations of Shaykhism ultimately contributed to a definitive break with other contenders for the Shaykhi leadership.211 By 1848, most were united in their opposition to Babism.212 Unlike previous millenarian Shi'a revolts in traditional Iran, Babism sought sociopolitical transformation in Iran. Not only did it attack the incumbent Qajar dynasty and the Shi'a clergy, it articulated a new sociopolitical order that significantly departed from the status quo.213 For example, the Bab declared that the teachings of the Quran were to be superseded by a new code of holy law in his book, the Bayan. The Bayan stressed a high moral standard for the Babis, with an emphasis on purity of heart and motives. It also upheld the notion of women as equals,214 and promoted education and the usefulness of science as a means of solving the problems of society.215 It is perhaps the first work of the Bab's in which he definitively lays claim to being the messianic figure of the Twelfth Imam, whose advent the Shi'as had long expected. Yet at the same time, he makes it clear that his mission involves more; "the complete abrogation of the Islamic dispensation."216 Many of the laws ordained by the Bab were harsh and severe. Indeed, the Bayan taught that all Shi'a religious texts should be destroyed because its teachings invalidated the teachings of past dispensations. The severe laws and injunctions revealed by the Bab can be properly appreciated and understood only when interpreted in the light of his own statements regarding the nature, purpose and character of his own dispensation. As these statements clearly reveal, the Babi Dispensation was essentially in the nature of a religious and indeed social revolution, and its duration had therefore to be short, but full of tragic events, of sweeping and drastic reforms.217 These drastic measures, enforced by the Bab and his followers, were taken with the view of undermining the very foundations of Shi'a orthodoxy. To assert the independence and the all-powerful character of his new dispensation, the Bab believed that he had to reveal very severe laws. These revelations were sufficient to


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create widespread excitement in Iran and engender a powerful opposition on the part of the Shi'a clergy.218 The Babi state envisioned by the Bab, and outlined in the Bayan, was one which would be: characterized by brotherly love; dignity combined with courtesy in all dealings and transactions between its members; cultivation of all useful arts and improvements; prohibition of useless occupations and studies . . . amelioration of the condition of women, who were to be allowed to appear in society; general elementary education; provision for the poor out of the common treasury at the discretion of the members of the "House of Justice." In contrast to the traditional Shi'a clergy, who expected the Imam to return at a time much farther in the future, the millenarian expectations of the Bab were immediate. In addition, the Bab spoke of progressive historical cycles of better and better revelations of sacred knowledge that would continue well into the future. He asserted that he was not merely the "gate" leading to the Hidden Imam, but the Hidden Imam himself. At the same time, he did not claim that his revelation was the final one. Indeed, he asserted that one who was even greater than he was would appear in the future and continue the work of the Bab. God, he asserted, reveals as much as humankind can apprehend of truth through an endless but intermittent succession of prophets. The Bab argued that the human race was ever progressing, and with the help of the Primal Will, or divine instructor, humans could achieve perfection on earth.220 The Bab asserted that the idea of heaven was true. Nonetheless, it was not a place. Rather, he wrote, it was a state of consciousness achievable on earth: "If to-day any one believes in the Bayan, he is seated on a throne of glory, though he be seated in the dust. So too wherever an unbeliever dwells, there is the land of fire."221 In this way, humankind could, through the assistance of divine prophets and efforts at ever increasing social reform and progress, create a state of paradise on earth. Following the execution of the Bab, the Babi movement declined and ultimately split into two separate and distinct movements. The majority sect accepted the leadership of Mirza Hosain Ali Nuri Baha'u'llah, who, within a few years after the Bab's death, proclaimed a new dispensation and undertook the massive task of transforming Babism into a universal and pacifist faith, which adopted an apolitical attitude toward the state. In sharp contrast, a small minority sect followed the leadership of Mirza Yahya Nuri Sobhh-e Azal, BahaVllah's half-brother, and remained committed to the militant spirit of original Babism. The Azalis, who had, by the 1890s, explicitly transformed their mission from a religious to a political revolution, were active participants in the Iranian constitutional revolution of 1906.222 The Babi movement exhibited many characteristics that were similar to the nearly contemporaneous Taiping movement in China.223 In contrast to prior heretical religious movements in both societies that sought to purify existing traditional

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theological dogma, the Taipings and the Babis both presented new prophets who effectively articulated and preached a new religion. Indeed, both movements, also unlike prior episodes of millenarian rebellion, represented a rather complete doctrinal break with the conventional order in these societies; Shi'a Islam and Confucianism. In each case the movement was inspired by a young man who had a personal psychological experience that led him to claim divine inspiration. Both men declared themselves to be divinely ordained deliverers who would save their people. Both profoundly criticized and denounced traditional religious practices, government and social corruption, and immorality as sources of evil in their respective societies. And both quickly gained an enthusiastic following, while concurrently provoking violent enemies, primarily from supporters of the incumbent ruling tradition. Both movements ultimately broke with the sources of their doctrines; the Taipings with Christianity and the Babis with Shaykhism. In contrast to previous millenarian rebel movements in both societies, the Babis and the Taipings put forth a new ideology that espoused a revived religion, a moral code, and a theocratic state political structure that was expected to be superior to existing sociopolitical institutions. Both movements emerged during periods of political change, economic trouble, and unrest, and following military defeat by a superior Western power (in the Opiu War of 1839-1842 in China and the Perso-Russian War of 1844 in Iran). As a resu of these defeats, Western values began to permeate each society and challenge traditional economic, social, and political values. By the nineteenth century, it is possible to detect, in both cases, an important transmutation in the characteristics of millenarianism. Earlier episodes of prophecy-inspired rebellion exhibited consistently vague and naive outbursts of violence in response to social unrest and stress. Such movements were usually ill conceived and ineffectively organized, and possessed poorly articulated, boundless goals that lacked a clear definition. Prompted largely by a widespread belief that certain signs, in the form of earthquakes, floods, comets, eclipses, war and others, foretold impending social disaster, these millenarian outbursts awaited the miraculous and magical return of a superhuman and transcendental deliverer who would descend to earth and usher in an era of peace, brotherhood, and harmony. Such movements were backwardlooking in the sense that they yearned for a prior Golden Age of bliss and stability which was idealized and perpetuated by readily available social myths. In contrast, the goal of the Taipings and the Babis was not simply to displace th existing ruling elite. It was to establish what was perceived as a superior order in society. In this regard, the Chavez Lopez movement in Mexico in the 1860s may also be compared to the Taipings and the Babis. All three sought to create a new society that would prepare the way for a Utopian paradise of peace, brotherhood, and social harmony. The Taiping and Babi movements were not rebellions, as was characteristic of prior episodes of millenarianism in these societies. Rather, they were aborted revolutions. Although they were ultimately suppressed, the Babis in Iran and the


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Taipings in China shared the important characteristic of seeking transformation, a complete makeover of their respective societies. If these movements had been successful, today's scholars would write of the Chinese and Iranian revolutions as having begun in the 1840s rather than in the twentieth century. The ancient concept of millenarianism, in both cases, was transformed largely in accordance with the needs of these societies. Millenarianism moved from a magical source of origin in the eyes of its believers to that of a more human source. As a result, the notion of social salvation was converted from an exclusively God-induced process to one which was largely in the hands of the people. This transformation prepared the way for massive revolution in both societies in the twentieth century. MILLENARIANISM IN TRADITIONAL CHINA, MEXICO, AND IRAN: SOME COMMON CHARACTERISTICS A direct relationship exists between social upheaval—disaster, catastrophe, and/or abrupt and significant social change—and millenarianism. Those who foresee an imminent transformation and salvation of society (revolutionary millenarians) expect that disaster will precede such change and actually prepare the way. The evidence is clear that the traditional period in China, Mexico, and Iran was marked by a durable and pervasive tradition of millenarianism. Tracing its origins to both religious and political circumstances, this tradition reached back into the ancient period in all three societies. Although its appearance was episodic, becoming most explicit during periods of general restiveness, millenarianism was an ever-present mechanism for engendering limited social change, lying just below the surface of everyday life even in periods of social stability. By the nineteenth century, it is possible to detect, in all three societies, an important transmutation in the characteristics of millenarianism. Earlier episodes exhibited consistently vague and naive outbursts of violence in response to social unrest and stress. Such movements were usually ill conceived and ineffectively organized, and possessed poorly articulated, boundless goals that lacked a clear definition. Prompted largely by a widespread belief that certain signs, in the form of earthquakes, floods, comets, eclipses, and others, foretold impending social disaster, these "pure" millenarian outbursts awaited the miraculous and magical return of a superhuman and transcendental deliverer who would descend to earth and usher in an era of peace, brotherhood, and harmony. Such movements were backwardlooking in the sense that they yearned for a prior Golden Age of bliss and plenty, which was idealized and perpetuated by readily available social myths. The advent of Western imperialism, beginning with the Spanish conquest of Indian Mexico in the sixteenth century and foreign intervention in China and Iran beginning in the nineteenth century, created the most significant challenge and social stress these three societies had faced. The experience was a complete and appalling disaster in each case. Perceived as ineffective, outmoded, and no longer

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legitimate in the face of the more modern ways of the West, traditional value systems went through a lengthy yet significant transformation and/or revival. In China, the focus on the collective harmony of Confucianism gradually gave way to a new philosophy centered on personal harmony through individual salvation. As a result, not only did this weaken the legitimacy of the two-hundred-yearold Manchu dynasty but, just as important, it diminished its traditional source of power as well. The millenarian-inspired upheavals that emerged in nineteenth-century China demonstrated a growing and potentially significant chasm between rural and urba life. By 1800, Chinese society consisted of some 300 million farmers whose deeply entrenched traditional way of life was increasingly setting them apart from those in the cities; the artisans, merchants, wealthy landlords, scholars, and government officials who made up the remaining 80 to 100 million of China's population.224 The most important aspect of this split surrounded Chinese religious beliefs. For those in the cities, the Manchu emperors continued to play the traditional cosmic role central to Chinese society. The emperors perpetuated this image by fostering a state-sponsored cult of their person. In contrast, the common people of China's peasant villages, disenchanted with its seemingly ineffective doctrines, gradually turned away from the orthodoxy of Confucianism and increasingly sought spiritual relief in heterodox beliefs less concerned with social order and more romantically devoted to personal salvation.225 In Mexico, secular theories of social utopianism slowly emerged and ultimately served to challenge the legitimacy of the Porfirian dictatorship, seen as corrupt and the agent of foreign influence. Millenarianism among Mexican Indian peasants was a symptom of the chasm that existed between the isolated regions of the agrarian societies and the European-oriented culture and economy of the urban areas. This chasm had numerous dimensions: whites versus dark-skinned peoples,richversus poor, and the resentments arising from the conflict between a European-centered culture and traditional Indian life. Millenarianism provided the Indian peasants with the expectation that someday everything would be better and that their long-sought ideal of social justice would come to prevail in Mexican society. Millenarian beliefs were expressed, in particular, in the land-reforming religiosity begun by the independence movement of Hidalgo and Morelos. As we shall see, in the early twentieth century it was repeated by the Zapatista forces, who, invoking the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, carried out widespread peasant area land reforms without the authorization of the government. In Iran, the age-old coalition between the ruling monarchs and the Islamic ulama deteriorated. Shi'ism, which had always possessed the potential for revival, began to assert itself and took on an ever-increasing role in the government. This process eventually performed an important function in the engendering of revolution in Iran in 1978-1979. By the midnineteenth century, a distinctly different form of revolutionary millenarianism began to appear in all three of these societies: the Taipings in China, the Babis in Iran, and, on a much smaller scale, the Chavez Lopez movement in


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Mexico. These new forms differed from earlier millenarian movements in three important ways. First, each movement articulated a clear program of solutions for the problems of their societies. Their goals were well-defined, organized, and purposeful. Second, rather than looking back to a previous Golden Age, these movements were forward-looking. Progress was inevitable, they believed, and the program they espoused would chart their course. Third, these movements placed a great deal of responsibility for the manifestation of heaven on earth in the hands of the people themselves.Through strict morality, rigid discipline, egalitarianism, community of property, and the rejection of corrupt (i.e., foreign) ways, humankind, they believed, was capable of achieving a perfect world. These movements sought Utopia and were willing to utilize violence in order to achieve it. They thoroughly rejected the existing institutions of society and sought total sociopolitical transformation. In this sense, these movements became aborted revolutions, not simply rebellions. The ancient concept of millenarianism, in all three cases, was transformed largely in accordance with the needs of these societies. Much like its transmutation in the West, millenarianism moved from a magical source of origin in the eyes of its believers to that of a more human source. As a result, the notion of social transformation was converted from an exclusively God-induced process to one that was largely in the hands of the people. This transformation of millenarianism prepared the way for revolutionary violence in these societies. NOTES 57.

1. Eric Hobsbawm refers to such millenarian forms as "pure." See his Primitive Rebels,

2. Ibid., 57-92. 3. Ibid., 59. 4. Ibid., 57-59. 5. To add to this argument at the level of the individual, it is important to note the not so insignificant number of revolutionaries and revolutionary ideologists who were strongly influenced by religious doctrines early in their lives. Stalin was an Orthodox Christian seminary student in his youth; Marx was descended from a long line of rabbis on his mother's side, including his grandfather; Castro was educated in private Catholic schools in Cuba and greatly influenced by Spanish priests; in his early years in the Spanish military, Francisco Franco possessed a mystical belief in the destiny of Spain; Gandhi was deeply influenced very early by the asceticism and discipline of Jainism; Malcolm X was introduced to the Nation of Islam while in prison in his twenties and became a devout follower of Elijah Muhammad; and, in our present study, Khomeini was descended from a line of religious scholars and, of course, was himself an ayatollah, while Mao was, as a youth, intensely affected by the devout Buddhism of his mother. 6. Ranger, "Connexions between 'Primary Resistance' Movements and Modem Mass Nationalism in East and Central Africa," 635. 7. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, 59. 8. Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin, 105

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9. Said Amir Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam: Religion, Political Order, and Societal Change in Shi'ite Iran from the Beginning to 1890 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 269-70; Munson, 134. 10. Theda Skocpol, "Rentier State and Shi'a Islam in the Iranian Revolution," Theory and Society 11, no. 3 (May 1982): 278. 11. S. N. Eisenstadt, Revolution and the Transformation of Societies: A Comparative Study of Civilizations (New York: Free Press, 1978), 117. 12. Chesneaux, Peasant Revolt in China, 9. 13. Fairbank, China: A New History, 51-52. 14. The concept of the Mandate of Heaven is a "theocratic" idea in China with ancient origins. Nonetheless, it stood at the foundation of state Confucianism. In addition, it was at the core of virtually every major peasant rebellion during the Chinese traditional period. According to the ancient Chinese philosopher, Mencius, heaven possessed the power to grant or withdraw the ruler's mandate, and heaven spoke through the people. Cf. Guillaume Dunstheimer, "Some Religious Aspects of Secret Societies," in Popular Movements and Secret Societies in China: 1840-1950, ed. Jean Chesneaux (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972), 24. 15. Fairbank, China: A New History, 37-40. 16. Lucian W. Pye, China: An Introduction, 3rd ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984), 30-31. 17. Chalmers Johnson, Revolutionary Change (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982), 2. 18. The Son of Heaven is the equivalent of what Westerners would call "God on earth." Cf. Fairbank, China: A New History, 69. 19. Chesneaux, 9. 20. Creel, 18. 21. The interpretation of natural disasters as evil omens remains a common notion in modem-day China. As an example, during the Cultural Revolution in 1966, a powerful earthquake in northern China that snapped the tip off an ancient wooden pagoda in one city was generally perceived among the townspeople as an "evil omen." People claimed "that history already had proved that earthquakes portend disaster." Gao Yuan, Born Red: A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987), 2-3. 22. Fairbank, China: A New History, 48. 23. Chesneaux, Peasant Revolt in China, 7. Nonetheless, it should be pointed out that peasant rebellion in China has been more common in some regions than other regions. "Although China lays claim to an exceptionally ancient and colorful history of mral insurgency, the turmoil tended to cluster in particular geographical pockets." See Elizabeth J. Perry, Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China, 1845-1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980). Quote is from page 1. 24. Traditional Chinese Taoists generally accepted the world as it existed and possessed no specific plan of action to transform its institutions. Nonetheless, the followers of many "dissenting subtraditions" of Taoism "cultivated messianic hopes centered upon a perfect emperor." Lewy, 59. 25. Ibid., 62-63. The Yellow 1\irban Revolt emerged following many years of "political corruption" and infighting among Chinese elites over power. In addition, a series of natural disasters and foreign invasions "contributed to unrest and security." "Once rebellion was decided upon, the religious activity of the sect served as a political camouflage—a pattern observable in many other Chinese peasant uprisings." The size of the Yellow 1\irban movement is noteworthy—about 360,000.


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26. W. J.F. Jenner, The tyranny ofHistory: The Roots of China *s Crisis (London: Pengu Press, 1992), 199. 27. Peter K. Bol, "This Culture Is Ours": Intellectual Transitions in Tang and Sun China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 96. Wang considered any opposition to his policies as "immoral, and would not tolerate it." In a "properly unified state and society he argued, "all men possess the same values, all people function at their level in the social hierarchy, and no one would possess the independent means to follow their own ideas. Thus, dissent was wicked and unnecessary. In his ideal society, all people would depend entirely on the government for their well-being." 28. Chesneaux, Peasant Revolt in China, 14-20. Indeed, the banners of Chinese peasant rebellions often displayed such slogans as tfai-p 'ing (great peace) andp 'ing-chun (equality). 29. Ibid., 12-13. Secret society members took an oath of allegiance both to the organization and to each other. They firmly committed themselves to mutually aid one another during periods of stress and difficulty, "to provide refuge to members who were hiding from state officials, and to support each other in disputes with outsiders or the government. Loyalty to society brothers was the first obligation to all members." In this way, "the societies were secret orders composed of those who had no other means to defend themselves against the pressures of the state and social elites." 30. Chesneaux, Peasant Revolt in China, 17. 31. Franz Michael, The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents Vol. 1 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966), 13. 32. For an overview of the religious influence over the secret societies see Dunstheimer, "Some Religious Aspects of Secret Societies." 33. A belief in individual invulnerability, particularly to gunshot or swords, is a common one among millenarian-inspired movements. See, for example Adas, Worsley, and Mooney. 34. Chesneaux, Peasant Revolt in China, 18. For an overview of the beliefs and rituals of the Red Spears see Perry, Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China, 1845-1945, 186-97. 35. The secret societies were infused with messianic expectations that could trace their source to a variety of heterodox forms of the major religions in China. "These religions combined the transports of shamanistic ecstasy with elements drawn from the major religious doctrines and applied the resulting amalgam, especially in times of political, economic, or social crisis, to the redress of exploitation by officials or gentry." Dunstheimer, 23. 36. Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, 112. 37. Fairbank, China: A New History, 189. 38. Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, 111. 39. Ibid., 13. 40. Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, 113. "From this perspective, the Communist party [CCP] of the twentieth century did not violate traditional expectations, but dovetailed neatly with an established pattern of gaining economic and political leverage." 41. Susan Naquin, Millenarian Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams Uprisings of 1813 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), 176-84. 42. Ibid., 1. 43. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 22. 44. Lewy, 155. See also Michael, 14-15. Michael asserts that between 1753 and 1833 the population of China exploded from approximately 183 million to nearly 400 million, while the extent of cultivated land grew only slightly, from about 708 million mou to 737 million mou.

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45. Lewy, 155. A Roman Catholic missionary living in Kiangsi province in 1833 reported that conditions were so poor that "men were selling their wives and children and were living on the bark of trees." 46. Chesneaux, Peasant Revolt in China, 23-24. "It was from this army of unemployed that several of the leaders of the Taiping Rebellion emerged." 47. Jen Yu-wen, The Taiping Revolutionary Movement (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), 13. 48. Albert Feuerwerker, "Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century China," Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies 21 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1975), 9. 49. In actuality, Hung's exposure to Christian missionaries in Canton was not strictly by chance. Candidates for the Confucian examinations were strategically singled out by missionaries to present their spiritual message because they were such "an influential audience." "By the mid-1830s, Liang [Afa] had refined his strategy further [of following the itinerary of the Qing dynasty officials who administered the examinations], and began to hand out his tracts near the examination hall in Canton city, where those who had proved successful at the local towns' qualifying examinations met to be tested for the second time." Jonathan Spence, God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan (New York: Norton, 1996), 18. 50. Jen, 14. These pamphlets had been written by the American Protestant missionary Robert Morrison, and included short sermons by Liang Afa, an ordained minister and one of the first Christian converts in China. See also Spence, God's Chinese Son, 16-17. He asserts that the religious book Good Worksfor Exhorting the Age was written exclusivelyby Liang Afa and edited by "Chinese-speaking missionaries" who checked it for 'theological faults.'" 51. Feuerwerker, 10. 52. Jen, 15. 53. Michael, 21-23. To achieve the status of a first-degree scholar in the Chinese Mandarin system would have admitted Hung to the gentry class—the most important available vehicle of social mobility in traditional China. Such a move would have brought a high degree of honor to both himself and his family. 54. Theodore Hamberg, The Visions of Hung-siu-tshuen, and Origin of the Kwangi-si Insurrection (Hong Kong: China Mail, 1854; reprint, Peiping: Yenching University Library, 1935), 9. 55. Jen, 15. Indeed, it was a belief in his death and resurrection that surrounded some of the cult of Hung. 56. Prescott Clarke and J. S. Gregory, ed., "A Letter by the French Jesuit Missionary Fr. Stanislas Clavelin: Account of the Expedition to Nanking (November and December 1853)," reprinted in Western Reports on the Taiping: A Selection of Documents, ed. idem (London: Croom Helm, 1982), 105. This letter was originally published in N. Brouillon, Memoire sur I'etat actuel de la mission du Kiang-nan 1842-55 (Paris, 1855), 337-89. 57. Hamberg, 9-11. 58. Ibid., 11. 59. Michael, 24-25. Some debate surrounds the date that Hung actually received the pamphlet from Christian missionaries in Canton. It has variously been recorded as being 1833,1836, or 1837. Michael concludes that "this tract had actually come into his [Hung's] hands . . . in 1836, while he was in Canton for the examination" (24). 60. Jen, 20.


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61. Pao Ming Yap, "The Mental Illness of Hung Hsiu-ch'uan, Leader of the Taiping Rebellion," Far Eastern Quarterly 13 (1953-1954): 287-304. 62. Jen, 65-67. 63. Ibid. It was a membership primarily composed of Hakka that provided the God Worshippers Society with its "special militant character." "Once the society was established and its many branches were functioning, the Hakka found in it an organizational protection in theirfightagainst the Punti [their traditional ethnicrivals].Large groups of Hakka, already in conflict with their non-Hakka neighbors, joined the rapidly growing society" (30). 64. Ibid., 10-11. 65. Philip A. Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and Social Structure, 1796-1864 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), 174-75; Eugene P. Boardman, "Millenary Aspects of the Taiping Rebellion (1851-64)," in Millennial Dreams in Action', and Chesneaux, Peasant Revolt in China, 25-29. See also Michael, 29-30. 66. Feuerwerker, 26; see also Jen, 139-43. Until 1856, the chief administrator and most powerful leader after Hung was Yang Hsiu-ch'ing, who possessed the title of Eastern King. Yang's central administration consisted of more thanfiftydepartments and agencies, all with titles modelled directly on those of the Chou dynasty (1100-403 B.C.) 67. Kuhn, 190. 68. Ibid., 190. 69. Prescott Clarke and J. S. Gregory, ed., "A Letter from Rev. E. C. Bridgman to the Editor of the North China Herald, 22 July 1854," reprinted in Western Reports on the Taiping, (London: Croom Helm, 1982), 146-47. Reverend Bridgman was a former editor of the Chinese Repository and served as an interpreter on the USS Susquehanna during the U.S. Mission to China in 1854. 70. Clarke and Gregory, "A Letter by the French Jesuit Missionary Fr. Stanislas Clavelin," 107. 71. Jen, 137-54. The Taiping leadership stressed an ascetic and disciplined way of life among their followers, along with strict morals and a drastic prohibition of worldly pleasures. 72. Ibid., 164-91,321-49. 73. Chesneaux, Peasant Revolt in China, 30. Indeed, internal dissension among the mling elites was a serious problem for the Taipings and ultimately took its toll on the overall effectiveness and morale of the organization. 74. Jen, 522-41. 75. For a comprehensive look at the transforming nature of the Taiping Rebellion, particularly in comparison to previous outbursts of rebellion in traditional China, see Michael, The Taiping Rebellion, vol. 1. "While the setting was similar to that of earlier rebellions, the Taiping Rebellion itself and its goals were basically different from former dynastic upheavals. The Taipings attacked not only the mling dynasty—they attacked the traditional social order itself. And this wider attack gave their rebellion a character totally different from that of rebellious movements of the past" (4). The Taiping movement "contained, in the beliefs it propagated and the organization it established, elements so alien to China's tradition that they indicate to us in retrospect thefirstinternal manifestation of the effect of an outer and inner crisis in Chinese traditional society" (1). As a result, "one may well say that modem Chinese history begins with the Taiping Rebellion" (1). 76. See Spence, God's Chinese Son. He argues that the apocalyptic visions of Hung "were shaped in some fashion by the overlapping layers of change that the Westerners were bringing to China along with their Christianity" (xxvi).

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77. The generals who served under the Imperial Army chief Tseng Kuo-fan, and their successors, were granted military power and authority all over the country in return for their loyalty and service in defense of the dynasty. Internecine warfare among these warlords plagued China during the early Republican period. 78. Michael, 14-16. 79. Robert Payne, Mao Tse-tung (New York: Henry Schuman, 1950). While Chiang Kai-shek considered the Taipings to be "ignorant and stupid men entirely outside the current of Chinese history," Sun Yat-sen, "with more reason, claimed that the Kuomintang had come into existence to complete what the Taipings had only begun" (16). Sun "studied the Taiping rebellion at its source—in the villages of Kwangtung. Inspired by it, he had smashed idols and at one time declared that Christianity was the sole solution for China's problems" (21). See also Israel Epstein, From Opium War to Liberation (Peking: New World Press, 1956). The Taiping Rebellion "gave rise to a glorious tradition. The stories of Taiping survivors inspired Sun Yat-sen, who was born in 1866, the year after the final suppression, with confidence in the strength of the people to overthrow their oppressors" (21). 80. It is important to point out that the family of Sun Yat-sen was of Hakka origin in south China; cf. Jen, lln.

81. Wolfgang Bauer, China and the Search for Happiness: Recurring Themes in Four Thousand Years of Chinese Cultural History, translated from the German by Michael Shaw (New York: Seabury Press, 1976), 345.

82. Quoted in Bauer, 345. He cites Sun Yat-sen, Kuo-fu ch'uan-shu (Collected works of the father of the country), ed. Chang Chi-yun (Taipei, 1960), 906 (speech given January 4, 1922). 83. Robert P. Weller, "Historians and Consciousness: The Modern Politics of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom," Social Research 54, no.4 (Winter 1987): 732. 84. Bauer, 345. 85. Payne, 37, 264. 86. Indeed, both movements were structured along military lines. The CCP, during the Great Leap Forward, even saw the problem of economic development in largely military terms, utilizing party cadres to command teams of agricultural workers in a paramilitary type of organization. See Franz Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China, 2nd ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), 237-38. 87. Payne, 16. "The remarkable similarities between the programs of the Taipings and the Chinese Communists should not be underestimated: both drew their strength from the same common cause." See also Epstein, who asserts "the leaders of the Chinese Red Army, which fought over some of the same territory the Taipings passed through, had many of its experiences in mind. The Taiping slogan: 'Well fed; Well clad' was used once more in the liberated areas led by the Communist Party in the anti-Japanese war" (21). 88. Michael, 7. See also, Weller, 732-33. The Taiping Rebellion was an important topic of historical scholarship among Chinese academics and writers throughout the Mao years and remains so today. Indeed, shifts in Chinese political ideas and power are often accompanied by a "new" interpretation of the Taiping movement. For example, following the CCP ascendance to power in 1949, "there was a strong attempt to show that the rebellion (like the Communist revolution) was based in the peasantry.... More radical periods in the People's Republic praised the egalitarianism of the movement, which was seen as a precursor to socialism." Today, that same egalitarianism is viewed negatively as "backward" thinking, "reflecting peasant utopianism and recalling the 'leftist excesses' of the Cultural Revolution" (Quote is from Weller, 733). Much of the research about the Taipings conducted by


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Communist scholars and politicians has centered on its political manifestations and tended to ignore its religious components. In recent years, as China has relaxed its policies on most, if not all, religious practices, more scholarly attention has been directed toward an understanding of the religiosity of the movement. 89. Lewy, 156. 90. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 118-19. 91. Luke S. K. Kwong, A Mosaic of the Hundred Days: Personalities, Politics, and Ideas of 1898 (Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1984). 92. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 135. 93. Ibid., 137. 94. Ibid., 137. Fairbank asserts that the Boxers were an important component of the heritage of Chinese peasant rebellion, most likely tracing their social lineage to the Eight Trigrams. 95. Edmund S. Wehrle, Britain, China, and the Antimissionary Riots, 1891-1900 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1966), 139-48. 96. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 137. 97. Wehrle, 139-41. 98. Chesneaux, Peasant Revolt in China, 52. 99. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 134. 100. Ibid., 137-38. 101. Ibid., 138. 102. Ibid., 138. 103. Jean Chesneaux, "Secret Societies in China's Evolution," in Popular Movements and Secret Societies in China: 1840-1950, ed. idem (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972), 5-10; he cites Teng Tsu-yu, "Dr. Sun Yat-sen and the Chinese Secret Societies," in Studies on Asia 4, ed. K. Roberts (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1963). 104. Ibid., 11. 105. Peterson, 22; Henri Desroche, The Sociology of Hope, translated from the French by Carol Martin-Sperry (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), 21. Desroche cites as his source N. Wachtel, La Vision des Vaincus (Paris: Gallimand, 1971), 45-46. See also Burt Cartwright Brundage, The Fifth Sun: Aztec Gods, Aztec Worlds (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979), 102-28, and Lafaye, 15,149-55. For an overview of the Nahua creation myth, see Florescano, 1-17. 106. Peterson, 49. The legend of Quetzalcoatl traces its origins to the "great culture of Teotihuacan, which dominated central Mexico from about AD. 200 to 750. Quetzalcoatl was associated with the values of humility, love, mercy, and compassion and was greatly revered by the common man. It was said that the enlightened deity had created humankind, founded agriculture, science, and the arts, and invented the sacred calendar of 120 days. "Quetzalcoatl was the patron divinity of the Aztec priesthood—the highest rank one could attain was named for him. "Yet, more than that, to become a Quetzalcoatl was to have achieved a state of spiritual purity; the closest one could come to the 4God behind the Gods/ " 107. The Aztecs maintained a precise system of chronological order in the form of calendar marking periods known as "suns." The Aztec creation myth is dominated by "an incessant, and fatal movement that is governed by the appearance and destruction of the suns, for each sun creates a new cosmic order, supposes a new re-creation of the universe and of human life, in the same manner as its disappearance implies the sudden destruction of what was created before." Florescano, 9. 108. Peterson, 22.

no


109. Florescano, 27. 110. Ibid., 27,220,221. 111. Ruiz, 130. 112. Robert E. Quirk, The Mexican Revolution and the Catholic Church, 1910-1929 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), 3; Lafaye, 1-11. 113. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 110. 114. Ibid., 110. 115. Lafaye, 30-31. 116. Ibid., 22. 117. Ibid., 22. 118. Eric Wolf, "The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National Symbol," Journal of American Folklore 71 (1958): 34-39. 119. Florescano, 133-34. 120. Ibid., 34-35. 121. Ruiz, 102. The cult surrounding the Virgin of Guadalupe swept over all of New Spain, particularly after the pope and the king of Spain, both of whom believed in miracles, "baptized her the patroness of the colony." "By implication, the popular cult carried a spec meaning: the apparition of the Virgin conferred on New Spain's church an autonomous statu Christianity had arrived not through the efforts of the friars but with the Mother of God. Th Conquest occurred because God in his infinite wisdom chose New Spain for the appearance of the Virgin. The conquest, therefore, had a higher purpose, beyond the mundane needs of the crown" (102). 122. Wolf, "The Virgin of Guadalupe," 35. See also Florescano, 135-37. Florescano asserts that the cult that emerged around the vision of the Virgin of Guadalupe was most actively promoted by a "group of priests and Creole scholars obsessed by the need to give roots and identity to those bom in New Spain. This spiritual movement manifested itself as a powerful impulse, as a sentiment of affirmation of a rootless social class that lacked the place and identity needed in the new society that had formed in the territory of New Spain" (136). 123. Wolf, "The Virgin of Guadalupe," 35. 124. Cf., Ruiz, 102. The story of the Virgin of Guadalupe "combined religious traditions of European origin with the mythical and idolatrous superstitions of Indian piety. Her worship united every ethnic group in New Spain, not the least the Indian, who, whatever th criollo may have wanted, held on to his 'brown' Virgin. New Spain, as the feats of the Virgi testified, had given birth to a distinct nationality." 125. Quoted in Florescano, 141. This interpretation of the image of the Virgin of Guadalupefirstappeared in Miguel Sanchez, Imogen de la virgen Maria Madre de Dios Guadalupe milagrosamente aparecida en Mexico, celebrada en su historia, con laprofec del capitulo doce del apocalipsis [1649]. Florescano cites Torre Villar and Navarro de And Testimonios historicos y guadalupanos (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 198 164, as his source. 126. Wolf, "The Virgin of Guadalupe," 37-38. 127. Ibid., 39. 128. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 21. Both famine and disease were to blame for thi precipitous decline. Disease was "brought on by the Indians' lack of immunities and [famin by food shortages engendered by the imposition of Spanish pastoralism on the ecosystem of the densely concentrated hydraulic populations of Mesoamerica." See also Wasserstrom 27-50.


HI

129. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, (22) places the Indian population in 1810 at 2.5 millio Ruiz (120) places it at 3 million—out of a total mral population at the time of around 5 million. 130. Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, 131. Ruiz, 130. 132. Cf. Florescano, 100. "For the indigenous mentality, the destruction of their gods was a catastrophe of cosmic proportions." 133. Ruiz, 130. 134. Quoted in Florescano, 101. He cites Antonio Mendez Bolio, El libro de Chilam Balam de Chumayel (San Jose, Costa Rica, 1930), 29-30. 135. Lafaye, 20-22. 136. Ibid., 22, The original testimony of Andres Mixcoatl cited by Lafaye is contained in Procesos de Indios idolatras y hechiceros, Publicaciones del Archivo General de la Nacion, vol. 3 (Mexico City, 1912). "Proceso del Santo Oficio contra martin Ucelo, indio, por idolatra y hechicero" (58). 137. Gruzinski, 37. 138. In the Nahua language, a type of charismatic individual possessing... godlike qualities—"master public speaker... superhuman . . . respected . . . serious . . . he is the guardian... he observes, preserves, and brings relief." See ibid., 41. 139. Lafaye, 21. l40.Womack,224. 141. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 28. 142. Wasserstrom, 23. "Even after his death, Fray Pedro's success in these endeavors moved one Spanish judge to describe the town with an enthusiasm that bordered on pure rapture." Wasserstrom cites Juan de Pineda, "Description de la provincia de Guatemala, an 1594," in Relaciones historico-geographicas de America Central, vol. 3 (Madrid: Colecci de Libros y Documentos Referentes a la Historia de America, 1908), 442-44. 143. Ibid., 24. 144. Quoted in Wasserstrom, 25; de Feria's report is found in Francisco Orozco y Jimienez, Coleccion de documentos ineditos relativos a la Iglesia de Chiapas, vol. 2 (San Cristobal: Imprenta de la Sociedad Catolica, 1905 and 1911), 145. 145. Wasserstrom, 26. "Although these men and women failed in their efforts to create an autonomous Christian republic, they nonetheless bore witness to the seriousness with which they had accepted many of Las Casas' ideas." Thus we may conclude that this episo was both religious and political in context. 146. Florescano, 154-55. 147. Quoted in Wasserstrom, 78, He cites Hermilio Lopez Sanchez, Apuntes historicos de San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico (Mexico City: Published by Author, 196 714. See also, Ruiz, 130-31. 148. Ruiz, 131. 149. In this same year another millenarian rebellion, known as the Jacinto Canek Insurrection, took place on the Yucatan peninsula. The rebellion resulted in the crowning of an "Indian king," Jacinto Canek, who admonished his followers, "my very beloved children I don't know what you are waiting for to shake off the heavy yoke and servitude imposed on you as subjects of the Spaniards; I have walked through the entire province and examin all the towns and considered with attention what utility or benefit this subjugation to Spain brings us.... I find nothing other than a burdensome... servitude." The insurrection that

Ill


followed required direct military action by 500 Spanish troops to eventually quell 1,500 well-equipped Indians in resistance. Florescano, 157-61. 150. Quoted in Gruzinski, 165, He cites the Archivo General de las Indias, "Extracto testimoniado de la causa de los indios idolatras," ecclesiastical judge Antonio Diez de Medina to archbishop of Mexico, Manuel Rubio y Salinas, Dec. 2,1761. 151. Ruiz, 119. The Spaniards established a "pigmentocracy" in New Spain, "with status based, to a large extent on appearance. To be light of skin, a European characteristic, was a mark of honor and prestige; to be dark of skin, or moreno, was not. Whites... made up, at best, no more than one-fifth of the population. Of New Spain's 6.1 million inhabitants in 1810, just over 1 million were of the ' white race.' " 152. Gruzinski, 21. 153. Eric Van Young, "Millennium on the Northern Marches: The Mad Messiah of Durango and Popular Rebellion in Mexico, 1800-1815," Comparative Studies in Society and History 28 no. 3 (July 1986): 385-86. 154. Ibid., 386. 155. Florescano, 214-16. 156. Ibid., 206-8. 157. Van Young, 389. 158. Lafaye, 114-15. It is an interesting aspect to our present study that at the onset of the Mexican War for Independence, the battle cry of Hidalgo and his followers became, according to legend, "Long live Ferdinand VII. Long live religion. Long live the Virgen de Guadalupe. Death to the gachupines!" Much of this is speculation, because no records exist regarding Hidalgo's declaration of independence. See also Ruiz, 150, and Florescano, 215. 159. Quoted in Florescano, 215. He cites Luis Villoro, El proceso ideologico de la revolucion de independencia (Mexico City: Secretaria de Education Publica, 1986), 85. 160. Quoted in Lafaye, 119-20. He cites Xavier Tavera Alfaro, Dos etapas de la Independencia (Documentos) (Morelia: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo, 1966), "Discurso pronunciado por Morelos en la apertura del congreso de Chilpancingo, 14 de septiembre de 1813 " (49). 161. Lafaye, 120. Following the war, Morelos asked that the Mexican Constitution of 1813 be consecrated to the Virgin of Guadalupe. "A fanatical Catholic and intolerant of other faiths, Morelos looked upon those who did not worship the Virgen de Guadalupe as traitors." Ruiz, 157. 162. During the Mexican War of Independence, the symbol of the Virgin of Guadalupe became the banner of the revolutionary armies led by Hidalgo and Morelos. See Ruiz, 151. 163. Florescano, 216. The Mexican War of Independence was not strictly a war of the indigenous peasants of New Spain. In the period 1810-1814, a small group of professionals of the middle and upper classes in the cities founded a secret society which they called uLos Guadalupes." Throughout the war they provided much needed assistance to soldiers and the overall movement. See Wilbert H. Timmons, "Los Guadalupes: A Secret Society in the Mexican Revolution for Independence," Hispanic American Historical Review 30 (1950): 453-79. 164. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 34. 165. Ibid., 34. 166. Ibid., 34; Hart cites Leticia Reina, La luchas populares en Mexico en el siglo XIX (Mexico City: Casa Chata, 1983), and idem, Las rebeliones campesinas en Mexico (18191906) (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1980). Eventually this movement encompassed villages and pueblos in a 60,000-square-mile area.


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167. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 38. 168. Ibid., 39. 169.Gilly, 17. 170. Ibid., 17-18. 171. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 39. 172. Ibid., 39. 173. Bricker, 119. 174. Ibid., 119. 175. Ibid., 119. 176. Ibid., 125. 177. Ibid., 119. 178. James D. Cockcroft, Intellectual Precursors of the Mexican Revolution: 1900-19 (Austin: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas Press, 1968), 51. 179. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 44-45, He cites Herberto Frias, Tomochic (Mexico City: Valades y Cia, 1906). The Tomochic rebellion "was economically and culturally linke to the other conflicts in the region. Railroad, mining, ranching, and timber interests from th United States had established hegemony over the economy of the northwest, with some British and Canadian participation" (44). 180. Hart, Revolutionary Mexico, 44-45. See also Mooney. 181. Sachedina, 3-7. 182. Ibid., 5. 183. Ibid., 5. On the other hand, many other followers of Muhammad felt that his successor should be chosen from among the men of the prophet's tribe of Quraysh by the elders of the community. Those who followed this notion became known as the "people of the custom and community," or the Sunnis. 184. Choueiri, 25-28. See also Sachedina, 6-11. Sachedina concludes that the belief in the eventual return of the Mahdi has allowed the Shi'ite community to "endure under difficu circumstances and to hope for reform pending" his return. "They looked forward to the promised events accompanying the emergence of the Hidden Imam which would adjust the present unbearable historical circumstances in favor of the oppressed who remained loyal to the the Imam" (10). 185. Cf. Mohammad Mohaddessin, Islamic Fundamentalism: The New Global Threat (Washington, D.C.: Seven Locks Press, 1993), 2. Mohaddessin, a leading Iranian dissident and member of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, argues that "a closer look at this linkage of politics and religious sentiments of the Muslim masses is essential to understanding how religious demagogues and fundamentalists—chief among them Khomeini—have exploited this bond to usurp power, and why Marxism, nationalism, and liberalis have failed to serve as an alternative to the religious forces in the Islamic world." Nearly fourteen hundred years after the birth of Muhammad and the emergence of the Islamic faith the hopes surrounding the intercession of the Prophet at the end of time, on behalf of those who follow his teachings, "are extremely high, especially among the masses" (1). 186. Sachedina, 1. 187. Ibid., 17. 188. The passion plays, which commemorate the story of Husayn, and the processions of the 9th and 10th of the religious month of Moharram were held to observe the events of Karbala. Apart from being a symbol of martyred innocence, Husayn is popularly venerated in Iran in his role of a hajat-deh (need-giver), who "grants prayers and brings succor when addressed with proper demonstrations of self-abasement and helplessness." Mary Hegland,

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'Two Images of Husain: Accommodation and Revolution in an Iranian Village," in Religio and Politics in Iran, ed. Nikki R. Keddie (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 218-3 189. For an overview of the revolutionary potential of Shi'ite millenarian beliefs, see also Arjomand, "Millennial Beliefs, Hierocratic Authority, and Revolution in Shi'ite Iran," 220-31. 190. Additionally, various Shi'a revolt movements came into being in the years followin Mohammed's death in opposition to the establishment of a Sunni-dominated Islamic state. "These movements were explicitly political in orientation aiming to achieve their respective leaders' political goals." Ha mid Enayat and Mangol Bayat, "Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhullah Khumayni and Wilayat-i Faqih," in Expectation of the Millennium: Shi'ism in History, e Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Hamid Dabashi, and Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr (Albany: State Universit of New York Press, 1989), 348. 191. Ibid., 348. 192. Karl Heinrich Gobel, "Imamate," translated by Hamid Dabashi, in Expectation of the Millennium: Shi'ism in History, 6. 193. Choueiri, 26. 194. Iran can be a particularly "deceptive" state for Westerners to understand fully, specifically because its traditional history "provides many examples of messianic revolt punctuating long periods of calm." "During quiet periods Iranians tend to be complacent to foreigners and peaceful in their behavior. Yet in both traditional and modem times this peaceful exterior has been punctuated by numerous [millenarian-inspired] revolts." Nikki R. Keddie and Eric Hooglund, ed., The Iranian Revolution & the Islamic Republic (Syracus Syracuse University Press, 1986), 2. 195. Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi'i Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi'ism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 100. 196. Arjomand, The Shadow of God, 75. 197. Choueiri, 26. 198. Peter Smith, The Babi and Baha'i Religions: From Messianic Shi'ism to a World Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 5-6. 199. Arjomand, The Shadow of God, 109-21. 200. Ibid., 197. 201. E. G. Browne, "The Babis of Persia," in Selectionsfrom the Writings ofE. G. Brow on the Babi and Baha'i Religions, ed. Moojan Momen (Oxford: George Ronald, 1987), 196. First published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1889). 202. Nikki R. Keddie, "Religion and Irreligion in Early Iranian Nationalism," Comparative Studies in Society and History 4, no. 3 (1962): 267. See also, P. Smith, 9-11. 203. P. Smith, 12. 204. Browne, 190-91. 205. Quoted in Muhammed Zarandi Nabil, The Dawnbreakers: NabiVs Narrative of the Early Days of the Baha'i Revelation (Wilmette, IL: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1932), 253. 206. Edward Granville Browne, British scholar and professor of Arabic Studies at Oxford University, spent much of his life living in, studying, and writing about Persia and, specifically, the Babi movement. Nonetheless, his works have been discredited by religious scholars; specifically, the followers of the prophet Baha'u'llah—the Baha'i's—a faith that traces its theological roots to the Babi movement. Baha'i writers argue that, "unfortunately, Professor Browne did notrightlyjudge all that he observed, and his writings have tended to fortify critics and enemies of the Baha'i faith." See H. M. Balyuzi, Edward Granville Browne and the Baha'i Faith (London: George Ronald, 1970).


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207. Browne, 208-9. 208. Dennis MacEoin, 4The Babi Concept of Holy War," Religion (1982): 93-129. The messianic expectations of the Bab contributed to his call for jihad and were clearly linked to his role as the Imam, "the victorious leader of the holy war of the last days " 209. Keddie, "Religion and Irreligion in Early Iranian Nationalism," 267-68. 210. P. Smith, 17. 211. In his analysis of the Babi movement, Arjomand concludes that it "stemmed not from the personal charisma of its leader but rather from the Shi'ite messianic belief in the coming of the Mahdi." See his "Millennial Beliefs, Hierocratic Authority, and Revolution in Shi'ite Iran," 222. 212. Ibid., 17. 213. Mangol Bay at, Iran's First Revolution: Shi'ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909 (New York; Oxford University Press, 1991), 53. 214. A leading Babi clerical leader and poetess, for example, was a woman, Fatimah Bigum Baraghani (1814-1851). She was given the title of Tahirih (pure) by the Bab. She was "not only deeply learned, but also eloquent, vehement, controversial, and radical in her interpretations of babism." See P. Smith, 16-17. 215. Abbas Amanat, Resurrection and Renewal: The Making of the Babi Movement in Iran, 1844-1850 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 191-92. 216. E. G. Browne, "A Summary of the Persian Bayan," in Selectionsfromthe Writin of E.G. Browne on the Babi and Baha 'i Religions, 318. 217. Shoghi Effendi, Dawn of a New Day: Messages to India 1923-1957 (New Delhi: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1970), 77-78. 218. Ibid, 78. 219. Browne, "The Babis of Persia," 234. 220. E. G. Browne, "Babism," in Selections from the Writings of E. G. Browne on the Babi and Baha'i Religions, 413,425. First published in Religious Systems of the World, 2 ed. (1926). See also Keddie, "Religion and Irreligion in Early Iranian Nationalism," 268. 221. Quoted in Browne, "Babism," 425. 222. Cf. Keddie, "Religion and Irreligion in Early Iranian Nationalism," 267-74; Vaness Martin, Islam and Modernism: The Iranian Revolution of 1906 (Syracuse: Syracuse Unive sity Press, 1989), 22; Bayat, 22-23, 53-54, 66-70; and Arjomand, "Millennial Beliefs, Hierocratic Authority, and Revolution in Shi'ite Iran," 226-27. Arjomand argues that the Azalis "played a very important role in Iran's constitutional revolution of 1906-1911, and supplied a disproportionately large number of constitutionalist revolutionary leaders" (226). 223. For another comparative analysis of the Babi movement with that of the Taipings see Keddie, "Religion and Irreligion in Early Iranian Nationalism." 224. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 23. 225. Ibid., 22-23.


4 A Platform for Leadership

t is generally accepted that revolutionary leaders emerge from a particular J social-historical context. Their social backgrounds provide them with a set of values and prepare them for the political role they will be called upon to play in the future. In addition, revolutionary leadership, it has been asserted, is primarily "situational," that is, it emerges when a crisis situation propels the revolutionary leader into prominence and provides him with a "ready and willing fellowship."1 Nonetheless, important gaps exist in the scholarship about revolutionary leadership. For example, if revolutionary leaders are the product of social-historical conditions, what are the normative factors that are likely to produce a radical leader? If revolutionary leadership depends upon social situations, why is it that some crises engender revolution while others do not? In this chapter, I argue that the presence of millenarian expectations performed an important functional role in producing and sustaining radical leadership bent on social transformation in the Chinese, Mexican, and Iranian revolutions. CULTURE AND REVOLUTIONARY LEADERSHIP An important characteristic of leaders of social movements bent on revolutionary change, including millenarian movements, is a profound sensitivity to the present conditions of society and to the unique needs and desires of their potential followers.2 The millenarian leader comes to define his role as that of the shaper, articulator, and director of a new political program, which is often poorly defined and boundless, but nevertheless appeals to the expectations and aspirations of his followers.3 As a result, in order to understand the relationship between millenari-

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anism and revolutionary leadership, we must look carefully at the sources of hope and collectively held values existing within a society. The religion, philosophy, and morals that come to exist in a community can only be understood as specific intellectual by-products of social conditions within the community. In other words, religious beliefs, and logically, pervasive chiliasm, emerge from the collective thought of a society and not from the isolated minds of individuals.4 Millenarian reactions to perceived stress may be seen as a collective desire to return to conditions that have provided stability and comfort in the past, often in the form of traditional sacred customs and values. Suggestibility in such circumstances, is high.5 During episodes of severe social stress, absurd rumors and fanatical arguments often emerge in an effort to explain such conditions. During periods of normative order, such absurdities "would be considered extremist, foreign, or largely outside the mainstream." Yet in the presence of high levels of social stress, they are often "seized upon and used as a device to resolve problems."6 Thus, the important variable at work here is the condition of the audience itself. As disaster victims, they are particularly susceptible to those solutions that tend to be the most pleasing and harmonious, not necessarily those that are the most plausible. It is under such conditions that millenarianism flourishes. It offers both a form of simple explanation for and a response to deteriorating conditions in society by presenting the appealing promise of total and swift solutions to seemingly intractable problems. In millenarian movements, a leader of some form is always involved who either creates the ideology of the movement or interprets ideology from some form of widely-accepted authority figure. The relationship between the powerful notion of imminent salvation and the role of the millenarian leader is critical. The immediate rescue of the society becomes the over arching and preeminent goal of the movement. In this way it becomes an important ingredient in the leadership process itself. Leadership requires three elements: a leader, followers, and a goal. Indeed, it is the goal of the movement that creates the reason for the other two.7 As a result, it is from the goal of imminent salvation that the leader of a millenarian movement derives much of his or her power to mobilize, focus, direct, and provide a sense of urgency. Without this powerful target, the leader would have no followers to join in the crusade. The need for such a divinely inspired leader, who espouses seeming solutions to conditions of social upheaval by proclaiming the possibility of total societal transformation, begins with the people themselves. The relationship of the follower to the prophet is in all probability determined by the displacement of transference dependency wishes onto his image; he is regarded as an uncanny person, of unquestionable authority, in one or more spheres of influence sanctioned by the supernatural.... The emotional appeal of the new doctrine [espoused by the leader] to his followers is in considerable part based on its immediate satisfaction of a need to find a supremely powerful and potentially benevolent leader.... The charismatic leader thus is

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not merely permitted, but expected to phrase his call for adherents as a demand to perform a duty to a power higher than human.8 The leaders of medieval Western European millenarian movements, for example, emerged more as a response to disorienting and stressful social circumstances than as a result of their possessing any unique or extraordinary talents. Indeed, it was the direct result of the "susceptibility of the audience" and their powerful belief in the imminent salvation of society that any number of possible leaders could have arisen and achieved an equal degree of legitimacy.9 In the presence of more stable and less stressful social conditions, such a leader would perhaps have been looked upon as abnormal, or at the very least an extremist—and would have had little chance of developing any degree of following. As we have already concluded, every revolution, at its foundation, is a social movement generated by suffering and social catastrophe. Out of such circumstances arise "'God-intoxicated' prophets, apostles, or religious leaders [and] various mystical, ascetic, or stoic movements and activities"10 committed to bringing about or promoting social salvation or revitalization. "Indeed, the prophet is a synthesizer who takes ideas that already have currency and shapes them to meet the exigencies of social and cultural crisis."11 Frequently, the only special quality possessed by prophetic revolutionary leaders is a uniquely appealing personality.12 Such leadership has often been described as charismatic in nature. The notion of charisma emerged in its original form as a strictly religious idea, identifying an individual who "possessed a gift of grace or spiritual endowment." Such talents were generally believed by others to be derived from divine or supernatural sources.13 Nonetheless, it was Max Weber who broadened the original religious definition of charisma by applying the idea to "a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader."14 Weber asserts that charisma is associated with times of "distress" and "extraordinary" situations and identifies two essential preconditions for genuine prophetic leadership.15 First, "the leader must challenge the established normative order by proclaiming a break with that order and by declaring such a break to be morally legitimate."16 Second, and equally important, "it is recognition on the part of those subject to authority which is decisive for the validity of charisma." This recognition is granted, often in an unquestioning and rather blind manner, and "guaranteed by what is held to be a 'sign' or proof, originally always a miracle " n Thus, charisma is a self-defined condition that, nonetheless, draws its powers and legitimacy not from internal sources from within the leader, but from the needs of the people themselves. "Its bearer seizes the task for which he is destined and demands that others obey and follow him by virtue of his mission. If those to whom he feels sent

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do not recognize him his claim collapses; if they recognize it, he is their master as long as he 'proves' himself."18 Charismatic political leadership frequently materializes in a state of extreme social stress or crisis that has engendered a sense of anxiety and disorientation among the people of a society. In such conditions, if existing political authorities do not effectively respond or seem unwilling to cope with present circumstances, then people will begin to feel a sense of alienation from the system. As a result, they become particularly susceptible to the appeal of new leaders, "who may be seen as the symbol and the means of rescuefromdistress."19 Nonetheless, the roots of charismatic belief lie deeper than merely the levels of anxiety and distress a leader can exploit or even the millenarian doctrines he can put forth. In almost every sociopolitical movement begun by orfromwhich there has emerged a charismatic leader, there have been other leaders or potential leaders equally capable of articulating grievances. Why, then, does one individual out of this pool of potential leaders succeed in exploiting the situation and gain control? The deeper sources of charismatic beliefs in a society can be found largely in the sacred myths that are transmitted from one generation to another. The leader who comes to be seen as charismatic is the one who can "successfully tap into the relevant myths of his culture and who knows how to draw upon those specific myt that are linked to the sacred historical figures of society, to its legendary heroes, ordeals and triumphs." Under such circumstances the charismatic leader can successfully invoke and assimilate the traditions and folklore that provide the society with its unique identity.20 As a result, charismatic leadership is provided legitimacy through the successful enforcement of the predominant traditional beliefs that are generally accepted in a society. In this way, the existence of pervasive millenarian beliefs creates the potential for prophetic and charismatic revolutionary leadership, not the unique qualities of the leaders themselves. Thus, millenarianism functions as a doctrinal platform that awaits the opportunity to elevate a leader to take control. MAO TSE-TUNG AND THE MANDATE OF HEAVEN The collapse of the Manchu dynasty in 1911 created a vacuous condition in Chinese society—political leadership was virtually non-existent. This was largely due to the fact that following his establishment of the Chinese Republic, Sun Yat-se never fully succeeded in convincing those both within and outside the country to recognize his Kuomintang (KMT) as the legitimate political institution in China.21 As a result, he spent valuable time and resources in an effort to consolidate Republican control. This problem was exacerbated by the problematic conditions that pervaded China in the early years of the twentieth century. Nowhere were thes problems more evident than in the rural regions. Village peoples of the Chinese countryside participated in many different social groupings in the traditional period Networks built around kinship relationships, secret societies, religious groups, and even local militias were all important components of Chinese rural life. Each of


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these tended to focus its work primarily on a system of local security in response to intervention by rural elites. This system was grounded in mutual responsibility.22 The Revolution of 1911 did nothing to alter this structure. As a result, peasant exploitation and continuing poor conditions persisted in rural China. The peasants remained at the mercy of rural elites and government officials, and this condition led to widespread rural unrest. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, the weak alliance that had been established between the rural secret societies and the Republican movement became largely superficial. These two prominent political currents within China maintained little contact largely because of the significant differences, if not incompatibility, in their social bases and historical perspectives. Rural and urban China at this time were two different worlds, and the weak, almost tangential, relationship between the two organizations reflected this fact.23 In the period following the Republican Revolution, there was a growing number of peasants living on the margins of Chinese society, "ruined peasants, vagabonds, unemployed laborers, outlaws, peddlers, and so on—there had always been many— now they could be counted in tens of millions."24 Largely in response to this situation, many secret societies remained a potent force in the rural areas. The designations "Taiping" and "Boxer," for example, were still popular, particularly in the South. In the North, the Red Spears formed a sort of peasant defense, as they had traditionally done, "against the depredations of bandits, the corrupt taxation practices of fiscal officials, and the looting by soldiers."25 These clandestine groups recruited their members particularly from among the peasants and, like their counterparts in the nineteenth century and before, were united by their messianic and superstitious beliefs. Their ideologies were a combination of primitive egalitarianism and a nostalgia for the Ming dynasty, which they perceived as a Golden Age. In the 1920s these societies remained solid and influential, capable of mobilizing the peasants and leading them into combat against local warlords and their mercenary soldiers. In May, 1921, for example, a peasant revolt in Sichuan, stirred by famines, natural calamities, and an exploitive feudal system, attacked the city of Wanxian. This revolt was led by Taoist priests under the glorious slogan of taiping (great peace).26 Indeed, quite often, in remote regions of China where communism remained an unknown movement, revolts took the more traditional forms of village self-defense units of the secret societies. In 1928, for example, the Sacred Soldiers of the Buddhist Way attacked the warlord Yang Sen and killed eight hundred of his soldiers in Sichuan.27 In that same year, in Huai-pei province, a millenarian-inspired movement of the Red Spears, known as the Fan Society, emerged led by "Crazy Chang," who believed himself to hold magical powers that were "learned from and immortal." His adherents have been estimated to include between four and five thousand. "Calling himself an emperor, Crazy Chang repeatedly led his followers off on expeditions ostensibly in search of an empress, seizing any attractive young woman who met his fancy."28

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An even larger millenarian sect, at this same time, located in the province of Hopei, was the Black Spears movement. Their leader, Lu Yen-sha, proclaimed that in a dream he had been told that he possessed magical powers that made him invulnerable to bullets or swords and that he could perform an important functiona role in bringing about the next emperor of China. Eventually, he claimed that he was the rightful ruler. "By 1930, the Black Spears had attracted several hundred thousand adherents across Hopei."29 From a sociopolitical point of view, these movements, both north and south, represented the desire of peasants for peace and order, and a sense of relief from their problems.30 Such conditions contained all of the elements of a potential social revolution festering in the Chinese countryside. Often, this discontent found expression in the more traditional ways, social banditry, secret society revolts, and spontaneousriots.31Nonetheless, as we shall see, it was the more modern organization of peasant Soviets, established and mobilized by the CCP, that eventually accomplished true revolution. By 1919, China's political community—students, educators, rural elites, urban businessmen, government bureaucrats, and the military—was imbued with "frustrated patriotism"32 largely in response to the Japanese takeover of the former German colonial holdings in Shantung after World War I. In early May, this takeov was officially recognized by the Versailles peace conference. The reaction in China was powerful and prompted a demonstration by three thousand Peking students in front of the Gate of Heavenly Peace at the entrance to the imperial palace. "China's territory may be conquered," their manifesto declared, "but it cannot be given awa The Chinese people may be massacred, but they will not surrender. Our country is about to be annihilated! Rise up brethren!"33 In what eventually became known as the May Fourth movement, Japanese officials in China were beaten and their hous burned. Nationwide violence, boycotts, labor-union strikes, and student protests became steadily more organized, antiforeign, patriotic and active. It was out of thes events surrounding the May Fourth movement that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) emerged.34 In its early years, the CCP was forced to spend most of its energy merely competing with other political movements for legitimacy and survival in China. In particular, it became necessary for the CCP to both contend and eventually to cooperate with the KMT35 In the early 1920s, Sun Yat-sen went about the task of gaining financial and ideological assistance for the nascent KMT movement from the new Communist International, which Lenin had formed in Moscow in 1919. The Soviets sent money and military equipment as well as advisers to assist the embryonic movement, on one condition-that the emerging CCP be allowed to join with Sun's KMT, if it agreed to subscribe to its modes of operation. Lenin and, lat Stalin were convinced that the nonindustrialized developing states, such as China, were not yet ready for a communist revolution. Instead, it was necessary for nationalist movements, such as the KMT, to prepare the way for communism by first establishing a solid bourgeois base. In China, this required that the KMT consolidate state control. Thus, when Sun reorganized the KMT in 1923 "along th


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lines of a Soviet-style party dictatorship," his basic aim was to gain power to unify China, not to revolutionize Chinese society.36 The Republican movement sought support from the Soviet Union for three important reasons: (1) the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people and their intellectual leaders were profoundly antiimperialist, and the Soviets represented the most explicitly anti-imperialist source of aid available to them; (2) Lenin's new Soviet government was able and willing to offer support to the Chinese; and (3) Sun's movement desperately required some organizational structure, and the Soviets' "democratic centralism" system was both an appealing and a plausible model— indeed, Sun was enamored of the Bolsheviks' achievements in Russia. Sun's goals were pragmatic, not revolutionary. He sought national unity, not sociopolitical transformation.37 Sun died in 1925, and Chiang Kai-shek became the leader of the KMT. Despite the fact that Joseph Stalin demanded that the CCP continue to cooperate with the KMT, Chiang came to develop a different strategy. Chiang perceived of the CCP as an important competitor for political power in China. He perceived of it as both a threat and a barrier to national unity in China. As a result, in his thrust for control, Chiang sought to destroy the CCP.38 In 1928, Chiang managed to take control of Peking, and he used the opportunity to proclaim a new Republic of China, with Nanking as its capital. The authority of his proclamation, however, was far from effective in much of the country. In many peasant regions, the power of the KMT was very weak or, frequently, simply nonexistent. Although Chiang's new government established the facade of a national government, it suffered, nonetheless, from three significant problems: (1) it was very limited in scope—"it was presiding over a rather small regime stretched thin over 400 million people still imbedded in traditions of manpower agriculture and transportation, and widespread illiteracy"; (2) it was confronted with the strong possibility of invasion by the rising militarism in Japan (which occurred in 1931, in Manchuria); and (3) it was plagued from the start by systemic weaknesses that began with the composition of its personnel; a schism between surviving members of the revolutionary coalition from Sun's generation and younger idealist-activists who often had dual memberships in the KMT and the CCP. Indeed, the new government lost its idealism largely as the result of the increasing admission of corrupt officials and opportunists who lacked a clear sense of principle.39 By 1932, Chiang Kai-shek declared flatly, "the Chinese revolution has failed."40 By the early 1930s, while Chiang was consolidating his power within the KMT, Mao Tse-tung was taking control of the CCP. In 1931, he was elected chairman of a centralized Soviet-modeled government. This placed him in command of all communist areas in China. In 1934, Mao and his followers narrowly escaped complete destruction at the hands of the Republican government only by undertaking the famed Long March, which relocated their headquarters, in safety, deep in the heart of northwest China. It was through this arduous journey that the movement was allowed to develop

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outside the predatory bounds of both the KMT and, later, Japanese invaders. As a result it remains today a powerful symbol of determination and sacrifice to the Chinese communists. The Long March also marks the beginning of the emergence of not only the leadership but also the cult of Mao Tse-tung. The difficult nature of the event—a nearly 6000-mile odyssey through some of the most treacherous of China's central highlands—combined with Mao's effective leadership of those who embarked upon it added to the growing belief that Mao was "invincible and was destined for success in accomplishing" all that he set his mind to doing. "Indeed, the stories and legends that emerged from the 'Long March' often read like the biblical tales of Moses and the Exodus out of Egypt into the promised land."41 The Japanese invasion of northern China erupted into a full-scale and violent war between the two countries in 1937. Initially, the Japanese attack evoked a nationalistic response that brought Chiang Kai-shek and the CCP together in a unified anti-Japanese resistance movement. This coalition was headed by Chiang because he alone possessed sufficient national stature to lead China against such a powerful external threat. As a result, the KMT was perceived by most people, both inside and outside China, as the symbol of a truly national state determined to resist the invading Japanese.42 Nonetheless, the KMT suffered a series of defeats that pushed them farther into Chinese rural areas. As Chiang retreated, he became increasingly more isolated from his moderate sources of support and progressively more dependent on the conservative classes. As a result, the power of the KMT government weakened throughout the war years.43 By mid-1944, an American Foreign Service officer wrote that the KMT was weaker than it had been at any time during the previous ten years. "The Generalissimo is losing the support of a China which, by unity in the face of violent aggression, found a new and unexpected strength during the first two years of the war with Japan. Internal weaknesses are becoming accentuated and there is taking place a reversal of the process of unification."44 Popular discontent with and political opposition to KMT maladministration and pervasive corruption was increasing as World War II came to a close. This erosion of mass confidence was most apparent in the urban areas of China. For example, following the surrender of Japan in August 1945, KMT officials responsible for taking over former Japanese political and administrative units and properties in China (Japan had ruled some regions since the early 1930s) were largely incompetent and corrupt. It was in the cities that the greed of these officials found their biggest opportunities and the reconversion program they were carrying out could inflict the greatest amount of damage. The image of the KMT was seriously tarnished by the activities of these agents.45 Popular discontent and criticism of the KMT in the immediate postwar period tended to revolve around four significant issues: (1) the slow-going disarmament of the Japanese by the Chinese government; (2) the invidious, condescending, and frequently abusive behavior of the KMT officials that were sent to take over former Japanese properties; (3) disinclination on the part of the KMT to punish those


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Chinese nationals who had collaborated with the Japanese during the war; and (4) the ill-conceived and inappropriate strategies initiated by the KMT to assimilate the region back to Chinese control.46 As a result, economic dislocation, in the form of mass unemployment and rapid inflation, combined with a sense of indignation and moral outrage over widespread corruption and abuse by the KMT, created significant grievances and an extended period of social crisis in many urban areas of postwar China. During the eight years of resistance against the Japanese Army, a real "social model" was created by the CCP at Yenan and in the other border regions of China. Its image was one of a new society, founded on new political and human relationships, with a new culture, and one that engendered a new type of militant revolutionary. To no small degree, and much like the Taipings a century earlier, this new model was a military society. Armed resistance was closely integrated with the everyday life of everyone. In addition, it was an egalitarian society. Peasant women, for example, were treated as equals and participated as full partners in work and committee activities, as well as guerilla activities. They even formed their own group, The Women's Association, to assist in mobilizing their social, political, and military activities.47 Mao personally envisioned the Yenan communes as a crucial and historic phase in the progression toward the ultimate achievement of a communist Utopia in China. "This process, the practice of changing the world . . . has already reached a historic moment in the world and in China, a great moment unprecedented in human history, that is, the moment for completely banishing darkness from the world and from China and for changing the world into a world of light such as never previously existed."48 During the war, the CCP was able to take important advantage of the Japanese invasion of north China. Applying their experience in guerilla warfare, they began to organize a resistance movement in rural areas behind the Japanese lines of military penetration. The Japanese Army, as it seized Chinese territory, tended to concentrate on urban areas, allowing the peasantry to retain their village social structure essentially intact. However, no overreaching government control existed at the top of the social structure, a situation that created an important opportunity for the CCP. The communists, under Mao's leadership, moved to fill this vacuum by organizing the peasants, carrying out land-reform measures, and generally strengthening their power base. As a result, they emerged from World War II the most effective and vigorous political force in China. By April 1945, the CCP could claim control over areas with a population of approximately 95.5 million people.49 Contrary to Marxist orthodoxy, Mao believed in the power of ideas to awaken the consciousness of the Chinese peasants, not the proletariat. Impressed by stories of the nineteenth-century Taipings' success at mobilizing peasant society with a nontraditional ideology, Mao became convinced that the similar but more "scientific" ideas of Marxism could transform China's historically rebellious peasants

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into a true revolutionary force. The secret, he believed, lay in a leader's ability to fuse the profound tradition of peasant rebellion in China with the ideology of Marxism, a syncretism that would go beyond the vague and naive notions of miraculous dispensation and endorse a new program of social progress in which major sources of wealth would be collectively owned, Western imperialism could be effectively combatted, and socioeconomic inequality would be eliminated.50 Mao was fascinated with the potential power of a peasant people in arms breaking out of bureaucratic control. He had been deeply impressed by what he ha seen in his native Hunan countryside in 1926-1927; a peasant movement full of impulsive hostility. It was here, in the ancient militancy of the Chinese countryside, that Mao discovered the true sources of revolution residing not in a party organization but, rather, in the actions of the peasants themselves. "All revolutionary parties and revolutionary comrades will stand before them [the peasants] to be tested, and to be accepted or rejected as they [the peasants) decide."51 Mao's belief in the power of the revolutionary militancy of the peasant masses was an important influence on events forty years later when provoked China's you to attack the very bureaucratic structures he had brought into being. In both cases the participants in these movements demonstrated a profound enthusiasm for fighting for a cause that was clearly defined in terms of good versus evil. The massive intervention of the Chinese peasantry into the process of revolution could only be accomplished by external stimulation. Neither in history nor at the beginning of the twentieth century had peasant insurgency expressed more than a confused dream of egalitarianism, primitive brotherhood, messianism, justice and good government. The traditional ideology of the secret societies, which had for so long dominated peasant political life, was deeply rooted in the past; the new ideas of the CCP led the peasants to begin to think about the future. After 1927, the Chinese peasant movement and the communist movement became one in China, and it is only after this period that true revolution began to take shape.52 The Red Spears and the White Lotus secret societies generally joined with the CCP in the struggle against both the KMT and the Japanese.53 In this sen the Chinese peasant movement became a vigorous social and political force with very deep historical roots. The peasants' profound hostility to landlords, rent collectors, and all civilian and military forms of authority had been expressed for hundreds of years in the form of peasant revolts, the agitation of millenarian secret societies, and large-scale peasant wars such as that of the Taipings. The agrarian crisis from 1930 to 1940, the aggravation of the peasants' miserable condition, and the Japanese occupation aroused this powerful force again, and "the CCP provided it with new political perspectives, cadres, and an ideology."54 Mao successfully overlaid the modern revolutionary ideas of "national salvation," socialism, and revolutionary transformation onto this peasant tradition. In th process, he moved the focus of rebellion away from the past and toward a better future.55 His ideological creation, which he called the "Sinification of Marxism " proved to be a major reason for communist revolutionary victory in China. "The Sinification of Marxism-that is to say, making certain that in all of its manifestation


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it is imbued with Chinese peculiarities, using it according to these peculiarities-becomes a problem that must be understood and solved by the whole Party without a delay."56 Thus Western imperialism (in the form of European great power interventionism and colonialism) not only contributed to the downfall of the old Confucian order in China, it provided (through the ideas of Karl Marx) new ideas and ideologies that turned the twentieth-century revolutionary process against the traditions and institutions of the Chinese. Chinese revolutionaries effectively used Western tools and Western ideas not only toridChina of the yoke of Western imperialism but also to completely rid itself of the yoke of Chinese traditionalism that had prevented the development of a modern state and society. The widespread belief in Mao's possession of supposed divinely inspired powers was not the result of any unique or special personal qualities or talents (except for an apparently magnetic personality).57 On the contrary, such powers were granted to him by the people and engendered by their needs. War, famine, destruction, death, and repeated social disasters created a mass yearning for a divinely guided leader whom they perceived was following the age-old tradition of the emperors and, as such, was worthy of their idolization. By the 1940s, the cult of Mao became an official component of party policy.58 For example, "the rectification campaign of 1942-1944, for example, established Mao's writings as the orthodox ideology of the CCP."59 In 1945, the Party Congress stipulated that "The Thought of Mao Tse-tung" was to be "the sole guide for the party's policies and actions."60 Every speaker at the congress lauded Mao and his teachings. He was proclaimed "the greatest revolutionary and statesman in Chinese history" and China's "greatest theoretician and scientist."61 There is no question that the death and destruction of war and famine, combined with a series of natural disasters in many parts of the country in the 1930s and 1940s, created a severely unstable situation in China after World War II. Mao took excellent advantage of these conditions. Despite considerable financial aid from the United States, Chiang Kai-shek and his KMT forces were unable to put down the communist revolution. In 1949 Chiang was forced to flee to the island of Formosa, and the People's Republic of China was proclaimed by Mao on October 1. The rise of the CCP to national power in China in October 1949 capped the preeminence of Mao's personal glory, reputation, and, thus, his personal power. It served "to reinforce popular perceptions that he was a 'savior' and 'the star of salvation.' "62 Indeed, Mao encouraged his deification and the semi-sacred aura that surrounded the position of supreme leadership he had assumed. For example, in a secret speech delivered in the early stages of the Great Leap Forward, he asserted: There are two kinds of the cult of the individual. One is correct, such as that of Marx, Eng Lenin, and the correct side of Stalin. These we ought to revere and continue to revere foreve . . . Then there is the incorrect kind of cult of the individual in which there is no analysis, simply blind obedience. This is not right The question at issue is not whether or not

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there should be a cult of the individual, but rather whether or not the individual concerned represents the truth. If he does, then he should be revered.63 The CCP was more than just a cult surrounding Mao Tse-tung. Indeed, factional competition, particularly between the "pragmatists," led by Liu Shao-ch'i and Deng Xiaoping, who represented a clear contrast to the charges of "adventurism" frequently leveled against Mao, alters the notion of Mao as the unchallenged leader of the CCP.64 Often as a result of this factional competition within the party, Mao would look to the masses for support of his policies, and in this way bypass any opposition among the party leadership. Relying on his personal prestige, he frequently appealed to local rural party cadres, and through them, to the rural masses. An important example of this technique was Mao's policy of collectivization. In 1955, Mao, largely on his own initiative, launched his program to collectivize Chinese agrarian regions. Not until three months after the program had begun was the party's Central Committee able to formally ratify the program. By that time it was a fait accompli. This effective bypassing of the party by appealing directly to the mass of Chinese peasants, who worshipped Mao and were sure to approve of any of his policies, "was a clear demonstration of the growing strength of the Mao cult."65 EMILIANO ZAPATA: THE SAVIOR OF THE MEXICAN INDIAN When one considers the significant diversity of the various socioeconomic classes existing in Mexico at the turn of the century, it is difficult to imagine that a revolution came to be at all. Mexico, at this time, was not a nation in the true sense. Instead it was a mixture of differing ethnic and culturally distinct groups living within the same political borders. As a result, the Mexican Revolution was far from monolithic. Rather, it was a complex mosaic of intertwined yet distinct revolutionary movements possessing different and often incompatible goals.66 Despite this diversity, however, a singular "common bond" brought together otherwise conflictual sociopolitical groups to create conditions conducive to the outbreak of armed rebellion. This common bond was a "public disgust" for the military dictatorship of President Porfirio Diaz, who had ruled Mexico since 1876.67 The revolution that shattered Mexico between 1910 and 1920 was really two revolutions, not one. One revolution originated in the North, among mestizos, and was primarily concerned with economic opportunity. This northern revolution was led by regional elites. Their goal was merely to oust Porfirio Diaz as president of Mexico and displace his power with a president sympathetic to their economic and political goals. They primarily sought to replace foreign (particularly American) capitalists as the economic leaders of Mexico.68 The second revolution originated in the South and was a revolt of Indian Mexico. Centered in Morelos, this movement came to encompass much of the region that was heavy in indigenous population.


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The revolutionary armies in the northern states, where the Mexican Revolution began, consisted of three distinct social groups. First were the "large landowners, business leaders, and other elites who believed that the policies of the Diaz government were a major obstacle to their social and economic advancement." The political leader of this group was the liberal reformer and wealthy landowner, Francisco I. Madero, who ultimately succeeded Diaz as president of Mexico.69 The second group fighting for political change was northern Mexico's small yet important middle class—"a group whose advancement was also blocked by entrenched elites. This group sought largely political reforms that would curb some of Mexico's more powerful institutions; most notably, the Catholic Church and the military."70 The third, and by far the largest group of revolutionaries in the north, was formed by the worker and peasant classes. A "heterogeneous mixture of railroad workers, lumbermen, miners, agricultural laborers, cowboys, shepherds, and some peasants, this group had suffered the most during the Diaz regime, and their revolutionary goals centered on social reform, workers' rights, greater availability of land for ownership, and a better quality of material life."71 Before the outbreak of revolution, this group had been characterized by a pattern of "horizontal mobility." "Their movements tended to follow the work that became available; on the haciendas, in the mines, building the railroads, in the small factories, and even across the border in the United States."72 Concurrent with the dissident activity in northern Mexico by these three distinct groups, there developed the clearly distinguishable revolutionary movement of the Zapatistas in south-central Mexico, in the state of Morelos. More homogenous and indigenous in composition than the movements in the North, the Morelos revolutionaries were a "unified, ideologically coherent movement of landless peasants."73 Led by Emiliano Zapata, the Zapatistas were strongly opposed to the Diaz regime, just as were their counterparts in the North. But their vision of the revolution was different. At first, their primary goal was the restoration of communal lands that had gradually been taken over, principally through legal maneuvers, by large commercial sugar cane haciendas during the previous quarter century. The Indians' titles to these appropriated lands, they believed, dated back to the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Their resentment over the loss of these lands eventually manifested itself in a revolution for social justice, not simply for economic opportunity.74 Zapatism had its roots in the old traditions of peasant struggle and organization stretching back to the colonial era. Although the Diaz regime had circumscribed these struggles in the late nineteenth century, it was never able to suppress them completely. The lack of a clear consensus on revolutionary aims among these distinct and diverse movements played a significant role in the failure of Madero's liberal-reformist government and laid the foundation for a protracted violent and fragmented civil war that continued for over a decade.75 A "weak-willed, inconsistent idealist,"76 Madero's almost impossible task was to bond these significantly different groups into a cohesive movement. The revolu-

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tionary alliance he directed beginning in late 1910 was far from a close-knit, ideologically consistent organization.77 It consisted of a loose mixture of independent rebels who were barely acquainted with each other and had only now coalesced as the result of a single common objective. The power vacuum created by the overthrow of the Diaz dictatorship was never effectively filled by Madero. Rather than asserting his personal leadership, the inadequate new president sought a sharing of power with other revolutionary groups in an attempt to achieve unity. But he soon learned a very difficult lesson: "Mexican history," from the beginning, "taught that a President of Mexico must circumscribe the legislature, the provincial governments" and all other centers of power "or fall prey to political instability."78 After less than a year in office, Madero's support by the Zapatistas deteriorated as a result of (1) their growing lack of trust in Madero's government; and (2) his failure to follow through on his promises of large-scale rural land reform in Mexico. In August 1911, Madero assured Zapata that if he laid down his arms and disbanded his army, lands would be distributed to the peasantry when Madero was officially inaugurated president. Zapata agreed to these conditions. Nonetheless, a few days later, as the Zapatistas were in the process of turning in their guns, General Victoriano Huerta, commander of the Federal Army, launched a full-scale attack against them. Following this incident, in the eyes of many Zapatistas Madero could not be trusted, since the military forces of the government could attack them so freely.79 By late 1911, the Zapatistas were fed up with what they perceived as an ineffectual leader who had turned his back on peasant concerns. In November, Zapata issued his Plan of Ayala, which clearly enunciated the social reform goals of the Zapatista movement and condemned Madero as a traitor to the true revolutionary cause of the Mexican people. As a result, any hope for consensus and the eventual union of the Mexican revolutionary groups was crushed.80 The Plan of Ayala announced the formation of an agrarian Indian society founded on the principles of communal ownership of land and the partial dismantling of the hacienda system. Such a society, the plan asserted, was to be maintained "at all costs through force of arms," and it named Emiliano Zapata "Chief of the Revolution."81 Although the Zapatistas were a homogenous peasant movement, their leadership possessed an important radical-intellectual component that gradually expanded into a significantly influential ideological force within the movement. For example, Otilio Montano, a former schoolteacher and Maderista, had been with Zapata since early in 1911. Montano was the principal author of the Plan of Ayala.82 Later described as "the sociologist of Zapatism," Montano made his most significant contribution by broadening the movement through the formulation of a revolutionary program of land reform and confiscation of the haciendas.83 After May 1914, the number of radical intellectuals in the Zapatista movement grew substantially with the addition of recent refugees from the anarcho-syndicalist La Casa del Obrero Mundial (House of the World Worker) in Mexico City, which Huerta had ordered closed.84 Among the more prominent of these radicals were


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Antonio Diaz Soto y Gama, Rafael Perez Taylor, Luis Mendez, Miguel Mendoza Lopez Schwerdtfeger, and Octavio Jahn. Taylor, Mendez, and Schwerdtfeger... seemed vaguely Marxist. Jahn was a French syndicalist, reputedly a member of the 1871 Paris Commune and Soto y Gama, a young lawyer who had helped found both the liberal movement in 1899 and the Socialist Party, was a passionate disciple of Tolstoy's and Kropotkin's creed of the "good peasant." Together these professional revolutionaries provided a theory, in the latest jargon, of "land and liberty." 85 Although one could argue that these radical intellectuals possessed no homogenous revolutionary philosophy, their addition to the Zapatista camp provided the movement with two important ingredients: a revolutionary ideology and professionals who were skilled in the principles of modern revolutionary tactics, including, and perhaps most important, organizational skills—something the Zapatistas sorely needed. Another important ideological influence on the Zapatistas was the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM). Founded by Ricardo Flores Magon in 1906, the PLM sought the attainment of many revolutionary political goals: the advancement of Mexican economic nationalism, broad political freedom for all workers and peasants, liberal labor laws (such as an 8-hour work day), international working class solidarity, and the overthrow of the Diaz regime. Indeed, by 1911, the PLM was openly advocating anarchism in Mexico. 86 After the collapse of the Diaz regime, Magon called for continued struggle for radical change, arguing that the new government of Madero was simply a rehash of the same foreign and domestic interests served by the Porfirata. What was necessary, Magon asserted, was the complete socioeconomic transformation of Mexican society. Unlike Mexican socialists, who sought a much more gradual move toward ownership of all property by the state, the anarchism Magon and the PLM advocated called for an immediate withdrawal of worker cooperation with private enterprise. Such a move was designed to hasten the destruction of capitalism, and simultaneously its principal instrument, the state. Revolutionary violence was inevitable and impossible to avoid, Magon argued, because the government functions only to defend capitalism and its continuing exploitation of the workers.87 The Zapatistas came to embrace many of the revolutionary ideals promoted by Magon and the PLM. The Plan of Ayala, for example, was significantly influenced by the anarcho-syndicalism openly espoused by the PLM and reflected revolutionary phrases (such as Tierra y Liberdad!-Land and Liberty!) drawn directly from the pages of the PLM's official newspaper, Regeneracion. In a similar way, Magon admired the Zapatista movement as one that aspired to the same anarcho-syndicalist principles outlined by the PLM. In a letter published in Regeneracion in August, 1914, for example, Enrique Flores Magon, Ricardo's brother, told a correspondent in Montevideo, Uruguay: "The only people close to our own are the Zapata group which, though stronger, also cannot get money easily.

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The only way the 'Zapatista' and our own appeals can raise money is by catching rich men or monks and extracting the little they can."88 The New York Call, a daily newspaper reflecting the point of view of a larg segment of American socialists, took a keen interest in the Zapata movement, beginning in early 1913. In general participants in the insurrectionist peasant movements in the Mexican Revolution were looked upon by American socialists as merely "bandits" and thugs who had little in common with the worldwide socialist movement. Villa, for example, was characterized as not "a socialist or a communist or a philosophical anarchist, or anything of that kind."89 The Call, however, had been told by a Mexican refugee that Zapata was "in reality more of a social revolutionist" than the usual rebel of the Mexican Revolution. After followin the Zapatistas for some time, the editors of the Call came to agree with this conclusion.90 As early as 1912, Zapata attempted to persuade Magon to move the PLM and its newspaper to Morelos, where he would be under the protection of the Zapatista Army (Magon was operating out of Los Angeles, California, at the time). Nonethe less, Magon refused to return to Mexico for fear of prosecution and for his life (somewhat ironically, he was later prosecuted in the United States for his anarchist activities and died, under mysterious circumstances, in a Ft. Leavenworth jail cell in 1922).91 The liberal Plan of Ayala was considered by the Zapatistas to be more than simp a program for agrarian reform, it was viewed as an all-inclusive, scripturelike doctrine designed not only to protect their self-sufficiency, but also to lay the groundwork for an Indian Utopia. Its tenets were thought to be sacred. As a result, the Zapatistas would not accept any compromise nor "irreverence toward its provisions," which they were convinced would "issue" in a "Mexican" Indian "millennium."92 It was an all-embracing invitation to all Indian peasant rebels to join the Zapatista movement.93 Zapata himself became a cult figure among Mexican Indians, a symbol of the movement and the socialism that had awakened in the Morelos region.94 Indeed, the peasants of Morelos looked upon him "as a saviour and a father."95 Throughout the revolution, the Zapatista movement exhibited explicit religious characteristics. In it, traditional Indian millenarianism became fused with the romanticism of revolutionary anarchism and Marxist utopianism. Praising the Indian as the symbol of those most oppressed by the Porfirian regime and Western imperialism, the revolution offered the promise of true salvation. Millenarian expectations were again brought to the surface, promoting the belief that everythin would be changed for the better and the long-sought ideal of social justice would prevail.96 Like their Indian revolutionary predecessors of a century earlier, Hidalgo and Morelos, who were, as we have already seen, influenced by explicitly religious millenarianism, the Zapatistas invoked the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe on their battle flags and on their unique broad-rimmed sombreros while carrying out widespread land reform. In this way they identified their movement with the sacre symbol of the Mexican Indians' hope for salvation.97


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Indeed, the Zapata movement offers some interesting analogies to the Mexican War for Independence. Like Jose Maria Morelos, Zapata proved to be an effective guerilla leader. Also, Zapata's area of most intense operations tended to be restricted to the southern tier of the central Mexico highlands. And like Morelos, Zapata also called for the dismantling of the haciendas and the restoration of sacred communal lands to the Indian communities.98 The Zapatista movement represented a serious threat to both the old landowning elites, who retained their support for Diaz, and the moderate-reformist liberals, who shuddered at the radical agrarianism exhibited by the peasant movement. Not surprisingly, outspoken members of both groups demanded that the Madero government crush the movement before it spread further. Indeed, the Mexico City daily El Impartial, a voice of the old conservative Diaz oligarchy, demanded the repression of the Zapatistas: Maybe Emiliano Zapata has some vague communist forebodings, and he may in his stupidity, even believe that his banditry is nebulously linked to the twelve apostles. Such a conviction perhaps explains his attractive power for the masses. Without realizing it, he may be intuitively preaching an apocalyptic doctrine of disintegration and extermination under the false banner of some vague egalitarianism.99 In the months after Madero's inauguration, the effectiveness of his presidency began to decline rather quickly. The son of a wealthy member of the northern Mexico elite, Madero was largely insensitive to the needs of ordinary people. He could not comprehend nor begin to resolve the basic problems facing the country.100 In addition, Madero's weak leadership allowed right-wing, counterrevolutionary forces seeking a return of the Diaz government to regroup. In early 1913, aided by the nephew of Porfirio Diaz and the conservative United States Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson, General Victoriano Huerta, a former Diaz supporter whom Madero foolishly appointed as his military commander, overthrew the Madero government and brought an end to the moderate-reformist stage of the Mexican Revolution. The revolutionaries were quick to respond to Huerta's successful overthrow and subsequent assassination of Madero. The armies of Carranza, Obregon, Zapata, and Villa united to crush Huerta's counterrevolutionary government after only eighteen months in power. But six more years of bloodshed would follow before hostilities finally ceased. In the end, the most conservative of the revolutionary forces, the Constitutionalist Army of General Venustiano Carranza, came to appropriate the revolution. Carranza sought to form a new ruling coalition that could unite the loose and disparate revolutionaries who had fought for so long. This new coalition would eventually consist of three groups: first, the new elite of revolutionary generals who had been rewarded for their efforts with large grants of land from the government; second, Mexican business leaders, industrialists and financiers who had prospered during the revolution; and third, a group consisting largely of members of the old

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landholding elite who came to realize that their prerevolutionary status and the pursuit of their prerevolutionary interests could be achieved merely by swearing allegiance to the new regime.101 This new coalition of ruling elites was capitalist in its beliefs and sought to promote economic growth with a minimum level of government interference. Nonetheless, Carranza recognized the political need to provide some measure of hope to the Mexican lower and middle classes that the revolutionary goals of land and social reform would eventually be achieved. Without this hope, he believed, political stability was impossible. The Mexican Constitution of 1917 "became the one legacy provided by the revolution to the worker and peasant combatants,""*2 and represented an important landmark on the nation's road to political stability. Although Carranza sought a somewhat conservative document that clung to the old "liberalism" of Benito Juarez in the 1850s, "more progressive groups still held sufficient power to include socioeconomic provisions that made Mexico's constitution perhaps the most forward looking of its time."103 Besides the inclusion of provisions protecting individual freedoms, it championed broad labor and educational rights, agrarian reforms, and an important socioeconomic role for the government. The new constitution marked the beginning of political consolidation and institutionalization in Mexico and is an important factor contributing to sustained stability in the postrevolutionary period. In four important respects, the Mexican Constitution of 1917 spelled out radical change. First, it established a new set of goals and ideas to guide the nation's life. Second, it called for a new, less centralized, more democratic structure of national and local government. Third, it called for a fairer distribution of the nation's wealth, severe limitations on foreign ownership, and agrarian and labor reform. Fourth, it separated the church and the state and provided for universal secular education and respect for the equal rights of Indians, peasants, laborers, and all Mexicans. Nonetheless, only in the first respect has the constitution been fulfilled to any extent in the aftermath of the revolution. Dispute continues to rage on the questions of political democracy, economic nationalism, and social revolution. As a powerful voice for Mexican peasants and a persistent counter to Carranza's efforts to build a unifying coalition, Zapata represented both a threat and an embarrassment to the nascent Constitutionalist regime. In 1919, Carranza, through treacherous maneuvering and chicanery, successfully plotted the assassination of Emiliano Zapata. Most likely out of fear of Zapata's cult following among the Mexican Indians and their potential response, his assassins demanded that Zapata's body be publicly displayed so that all could see the proof that he was indeed dead. The body was carried to the local police station in Cuautla, where it was not only identified by local officials but also photographed with large white words scrawled across the snapshot—"Emiliano Zapata. Mora" (Emiliano Zapata. Dead). This photograph was widely circulated in the southern regions of Mexico. m


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Despite the physical evidence, many peasants refused to believe the shocking news of Zapata's death. TVo generations later he remains a mythical symbol of the revolution to many of Mexican Indian descent. Some even deny he was ever assassinated and believe he actually escaped, and is living in a foreign country or in the mountains of central Mexico.105 Many await his return as a deliverer of the Indian people and to fulfill the goals of the revolution. Indeed, Serge Gruzinski suggests that Zapata was the lineal descendent of the Mexican Indian man-gods of the colonial and pre-Hispanic eras. Is it not necessary to ask why Protestants, Catholics, spiritists [those who practice the traditional Indian religions], and old companions-in-arms of Emiliano Zapata, the Caudillo of the Mexican Revolution, came to deny his execution in 1919 and to make of him a legendary figure in a Nahua and mestizo region that coincides with the area in which 150 years earlier, Antonio Perez had dreamed of freeing the Indians? What obscure beliefs, what autocthonous 'survivals' have posthumously made of him a kind of man-god?106 Other peasants accepted Zapata's death, but with great anguish and intense disappointment. One villager summed up the emotional loss felt by thousands of Zapatistas: Ah! I was on the way back from Guerrero when the news of Zapata's death came. It hurt me as much as if my own father died! I was a Zapatista down to the marrow of my bones— I had a lot of faith in Zapata's promises, a lot of faith. I did indeed! I was one of the real Zapatistas! I felt very bad .... I believed the news. Yes, I believed itrightaway.... They [his assassins] tricked him, that's what they did. They tried many tricks on him before, but he never fell for them. I guess his time must have come.107 In 1920, Carranza himself had become the victim of an assassin's bullet. His successor, General Alvaro Obregon, negotiated a workable agreement with the Zapatistas that provided them with many of the land reform measures they sought in return for peace in southern Mexico and their support of the new government. In addition, many former Zapatista leaders were co-opted into the new administration through political appointments granted by Obregon.108 RUH ALLAH KHOMEINI: ' T H E RESPECTFUL ONE H A S COME" At the center of the provincial elites in traditional Iran were the ulama; the Shi'ite Islamic clergy. In the more rural areas of Iran where the central government had little influence, the ulama represented its primary source of legitimacy, simply as a result of the government's recognition of it. Indeed, the ulama controlled the reins of local government, collected taxes, interpreted Islamic law, and, ultimately, defined the powers and role of government for the peoples of local rural communities. For example, they controlled the process of conflict resolution at the community level. They alone decided what was right or wrong in disputes involving

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both civil and criminal law. In their exercising of the generally accepted authority of Shi' ite ideology, the ulama were the moral teachers of the community; they wer its dominant ideological and cultural force.109 In addition, the ulama provided financial support by collecting taxes and sharin a large portion of the revenues with the royal government. Many civil administrati functions were carried out, particularly in Qajar Iran (1796-1925), by the ulama, "including all levels of education, most legal activities, and all social and charitable services."110 As a result, the ulama were the main stabilizing influence in those areas of traditional Iran outside the immediate control of the Shah. 'Their control of ideology, their predictable interpretation of Islamic law, and the stable distribution of lands, status, and wealth maintained a high degree of law and order at the local level."111 With its members frequently connected by birth relations to both the bazaar and landowning classes, the ulama was an essential cog in the administratio of the monarchy in Iran. Although the Shah officially espoused Shi'ism, beginning in the 1950s and continuing into the 1970s, the government of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, at first quietly and later more explicitly sought to rein in the political power of the ulama.112 These efforts were largely grounded in (1) fear, because the Shah believed that the ulama represented his most significant political rivals for power; and (2) the belief by the Shah that the ulama was the largest obstacle standing in the way of his efforts to modernize and Westernize Iran. Specifically, the state and the ulam clashed over such explosive issues as land reform, women's rights, and foreign policy.113 For example, in a January 1971 press conference the Shah clearly expressed his goal of separating religious faith from the political and social realm in Iran. Indee he not only wanted to separate the two but, in addition, stated the possibility of the establishment of a state "religious corps" that would "rival those of the legitimate religious institutions."114 "It is not improbable that we may create a religious corps in the future so that if some of the students of the religious sciences have to perform their service, they can do it [within the framework of this corps]. Just as we say religion must be separated from politics, and just as we are insistent in that respect . . . so, too, we encourage the people to piety and religion. No society is truly stable without religion."115 In this way, the Shah sought to isolate the ulama and confine their activities to the "domain of personal status and what Muslims refer to as the 'ibadat (rituals of worship)."116 In response to this threat the ulama struggled to preserve a narrowing sphere of autonomy and influence. Nonetheless, gradually they became subordinate to the massive new bureaucracy created by the Shah. The conflict between the clerics and the Shah essentially narrowed to the basic relationship between religious and political power in Iran, and the extent to which the ulama could have influence in political matters, in particular, those matters of public policy that affected the role of the clergy and the Shari'a in the Iranian state.1 Perhaps the most critical event in a series of repressive acts by the government was the violent sack of the main theological seminary at Qum, Fayziyyeh, in Marc


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1963. This action, according to the testimony of one of his most important aides and students, made a deep impression on Ayatollah Ruhullah Al-Musavi Khomeini, a theological scholar and teacher at Qum. His repugnance toward the state in response to what he perceived as an act against God committed him at that time to pursue an aggressive and unrelenting campaign against the Shah for the rest of his life.118 Early on in his career, Khomeini had supported the principles embodied in the Iranian Constitution. This position was consistent with that of most of the ulama, who "yearned to preserve the linkages that the Constitution of 1906 sanctified concerning the primacy of Imami Twelver Shi'ism in public life."119 Nonetheless, by the early 1960s Khomeini came to believe that Islam and nationalism were under great danger from neocolonialism. These fears had an intense impact on his political beliefs. Gradually, he quietly moved his own political ideas away from a clear support of the Iranian Constitution to a potentially more powerful use of the sacred power of Twelver Shi'ism as the firm foundation of government. We speak to the regime "in its own accepted terms"—not that the Constitution is, in our view, perfect. Rather, if the ulama speak in terms of the Constitution, it is because Article two of the Supplementary Fundamental Laws does not recognize any legislation opposed to the Quran as law, other than the only accepted law is the law of Islam and the Traditions of the Prophet and the Imams. Whatever is in accord with the law of Islam we shall accept and whatever is opposed to Islam, even if it is in the Constitution, we shall oppose.120 Khomeini was deeply concerned with the intervention of foreign ideas into the affairs of Iran. Specifically, he feared that foreign influence would eventually result in the abolition of Islam, both as a religion and as a guide to life. Foreign influences, he came to believe, represented nothing less than a satanic power in Iran; one that must be destroyed.121 Indeed, everywhere in the sermons and speeches of Khomeini in the early 1960s, one finds not only his attacks on the Shah's regime, but also his concern over the continuing expansion of Western neo-colonialism in Iran. "The conspiracy worked out by the imperialist government of Britain at the beginning of the constitutional movement had two purposes. The first, which was already known at that time, was to eliminate the influence of Tsarist Russia in Iran, and the second was to take the laws of Islam out of force and operation by introducing Western laws."122 In addition to the British, Khomeini saw Iran's more recent problems as the result of American intervention. "All the problems facing Iran . . . are the work of America. Until recently, the British enslaved the Moslem nations; now they are under American bondage .... The Americans appoint Majles deputies, and attempt to eliminate Islam and the Quran because they find the ulama to be a hindrance to colonialism.123 Foreign influence in Iran was a massive conspiracy, in the eyes of Khomeini. He perceived of Western influence as a device that sapped the energy and vitality out of Iran and its people.124

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In 1963, Khomeini was arrested and deported, first to Turkey and later to Iraq, for his antigovernment activities. This period of exile (which lasted sixteen years) was an experience that contributed to the radicalization of Khomeini's ideas on government and religion in Iran. It was during this period that he developed a populist clerical philosophy regarding the role of Shi'ism in the government of Iran. For centuries the Shi'a clergy had tolerated the idea of monarchy in Iran. They believed that such a form of government was preferable to the possibility of anarchy. Making a clear break with this tradition, Khomeini argued that such toleration of royal power was fundamentally unacceptable. Shi'ism and the idea of monarchy, he argued, were completely incompatible.125 Utilizing the original Shi'ite political doctrine of the Imamate, Khomeini rejected the conventional political policy of the ulama that had evolved after the constitutional movement; that is, granting legitimacy to a royal power that was ostensibly limited by a constitution. Instead, Khomeini called for the overthrow of the Pahlavi regime and for the incorporation of the Iranian political state into the religious institution of Shi'ism based on the doctrine of the Imamate. He called this religio-political concept Islamic Government.126 In 1970, Khomeini put forward a political theory that advocated direct Islamic rule on behalf of the Hidden Imam. Now that we are in the time of the Occultation of the Imam, it is still necessary that the ordinances of Islam relating to government be preserved and maintained, and that anarchy be prevented. Therefore, the establishment of government is still a necessity.... Now that no particular individual has been appointed by God, Exalted and Almighty, to assume the function of government in the time of Occultation, what must be done? Are we to abandon Islam? Do we no longer need it? Was Islam valid for only two hundred years? Or is it that Islam has clarified our duties in other respects but not with respect to government?127 Yet who was to be the leader of such an Islamic government? Who was to have authority over interpreting Islamic law? The two qualities of knowledge of the law and justice are present in countless fuqaha {the religious scholars] of the present age. If they would come together, they could establish a government of universal justice in the world ... If a worthy individual possessing these two qualities arises and establishes a government, he will possess the same authority as the Most Noble Messenger in the administration of society, and it will be the duty of all people to obey him.128 Khomeini's idea of such a "worthy individual" is grounded in the concept of the Velayat-e Faqih (Mandate of the clergy, or the Sovereignty of the jurist), which was published in 1971. This essay was a major innovation in the history of Shi'ism. In it, Khomeini asserts that Islamic government differs from representative and constitutional monarchy forms of government in its elimination of the separation of church and state. In Islamic government, "the Mandate [of the Clergy] means


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governing and administering the country and administering the provisions of the sacred law."129 In the absence of the true and revered leader of the Twelvers, who remains in Occultation, the sovereignty possessed by the Hidden Imam over the affairs of all Shi'as, Khomeini argued, must pass to the ulama, as the predominant interpreters of the Sacred Law of Islam. According to him, Mohammed had handed down to the Imams the authority to both interpret and carry out the law, as well as a responsibility to safeguard society. The Twelfth Imam, before he entered Occultation, had entrusted this sovereignty to the ulama.130 And ultimate authority is entrusted to one venerated religious scholar, the velayat-e faqih.m Khomeini was quite explicit in identifying the qualifications and the nature of the faqih. Such a person is the legitimate intellectual and theological heir to the Prophet and the Imams, acting in their stead until such time as the Hidden Imam shall return. As such, the velayat-e faqih is an explicitly messianic political concept.132 Indeed, the concept of political authority resting in the hands of one high-ranking, religious scholar was not new in Si'a scholarship and theology. And it was certainly not created by Khomeini. Such a concept is steeped in Iranian tradition and culture. It was first expressed in written form, and in a religio-political context, over one hundred years before by the Mullah Ahmad Naraqi. Khomeini was now reactivating it, with some modifications, "as a plausible theory of theocratic monism that was to assume the character of a miraculously revealed panacea to reverse imitative Westernization and to cure the strains of the rapidly emerging industrial society."133 Khomeini's political innovations represented a radical departure from previous interpretations of the role of the Shari'a in government. Instead of proposing merely institutional reforms in Iranian social, economic, and political affairs, Khomeini's ideas aimed at complete political and cultural revolution.134 To a large number of Iranians, Khomeini had a distinctive messianic quality, and many of his followers thought of him in a millenarian context. An unmistakably apocalyptic mood was observable during the fateful month of Moharram 1399 [December 1978] among the masses in Tehran. Furthermore, with the fourteenth Islamic century about to expire and a new one to begin, the quasimillennial charisma of the man they called Imam was compounded for the young militant clerics by his image as the renewer (mujaddid) of the century. The idea of renewal (tajdid), it should be pointed out, represented a centennial transformation of the Shi'ite millennial belief. Khomeini's face was allegedly seen on the moon in several cities, and those who had been privileged to see it proceeded to sacrifice lambs. Intense discussions were reported as to whether or not Khomeini was the Imam of the Age and the Lord of Time. Those who answered in the affirmative were undoubtedly among the millions who massed in the streets of Tehran to welcome the returning Ayatollah in February 1979, and whose frenzy was to be televised across the globe. But even many of those who answered in the negative were ready to accept Khomeini as the precursor of the Mahdi.135

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Khomeini and his fellow clerics perceived of themselves as the true interpreters of Islam who were worthy of unquestioned support and leadership in Iran.136 To them, Islam was an all-encompassing totality.137 This view, that their belief system was God's creation and their plan for Iran was God's intention, appealed to many lay Iranians. In particular, it provided poor Iranians with a sense of moral superiori to the man-created cultures and ideologies of the technologically advanced societies. As the Shah became progressively identified with foreign interests, the majorit of the clergy, with Khomeini at their head, appeared to many Iranians to be the tru representatives of Iran's traditional culture and historical identity. His preachings were a highly effective reinterpretation of Shi'a theology fused with fervent Iranian nationalism and anticolonialism.138 Khomeini represented an important symbol of the revolution. He epitomized the traditionalism of Shi'ism, which appealed to Iranians searching for their cultural identity. In this role Khomeini effectively used the sacred images of Shi'ism to surround the anti-Shah protests in a distinctly religious cast.139 Khomeini rejected the traditional image of Shi'ism as a passivist faith primarily concerned with mourning the tragedy of human powerlessness. He called for conceited and purposeful action—action that was clearly justified in faith—the overthrow of secular despotism, and the establishment of a "pure" Islamic state. Here we see again, as in the Chinese and Mexican cases, the transmutation of millenarianism through its fusion with a secular-influenced, "scientific" program of social and historical progress deliberately shaped and sculptured into a revolutionary program to fit the expediencies of the moment and cast to satisfy the needs of both its creators and their adherents. Beginning in 1977, the Shah began a series of reform measures in an attempt to save his monarchy in the face of growing domestic opposition, growing international criticism of his humanrightspolicies, particularly by Amnesty International, and growing pressure from the Carter administration in the United States.140 Nonetheless, his relaxation of repression, beginning with the freeing of 357 politica prisoners in February 1977, and the general limitation of SAVAK brutality, only le to more demands for greater freedoms and reforms. Throughout 1977-1978, the Shah vacillated between repression and concessions in his approach to growing political dissidence and protests against his regime. His decision to make scapegoat of several of his previously faithful top military and government officials, in an effort to reform and save the monarchy, reportedly shocked and alienated many of his wealthy supporters. Their flight from Iran with millions of dollars of personal wealth accelerated the end of the regime.141 Confronted with almost continuous insurrectionary conditions and growing pressure from all sides, the Shah made one last desperate attempt to save the monarchy by persuading Shahpour Bakhtiyar, the leader of the Iranian National Front, to become prime minister of Iran on December 29,1978. Bakhtiyar accepte the position on the condition that the Shah would immediately arrange to leave Ira on an extended "vacation" and that when he returned he would act as a true "constitutional monarch."


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On January 16,1979, the Shah left Iran, and on February 1, Khomeini returned to Tehran from exile in Paris to a tumultuous welcome by the Iranian people. Despite the bitter cold, public outpourings of support were rapturous from the moment the Air France jumbo jet was first sighted by people who had been waiting in the streets for up to twelve hours. Tehran echoed with the cacophony of cheering and car honking in long an repetitive bursts. Crowds chanted AghaAmad, or "The respectful one has come," and Alla Akbar or "God is great."... Despite the deployment of fifty thousand volunteer marshals, identifiable by green armbands and often by newly fashionable beards, Iranians mobbed the convoy.Hundreds ran alongside until they dropped from exhaustion. Even conservative estimates numbered the crowd at no less than three million.142 Millenarian expectations and revolutionary sentiments pervaded Iranian society in the early months of 1979. Large posters declaring "Twelfth Imam, we are waiting for You" above a depiction of a crowd, brandishing rifles and machine guns as if they were saluting one another, appeared on walls and billboards in many parts of Teheran.143 Four days after his return, Khomeini appointed Mehdi Bazargan as the "real" prime minister of Iran. On February 7, delegates from the lower-ranking personnel of the Iranian Air Force, joined later by those from the army and navy, met with Khomeini and pledged their allegiance to him. These military defectors proceeded to distribute arms to tens of thousands of young people and prorevolutioriary army reservists. On February 10 and 11, revolutionary forces attacked and defeated one of the Imperial Guard's two armored units. Following this, the remainder of the military declared its neutrality. As revolutionaries seized Tehran's television station, its prisons, and its police stations in late February, Bakhtiyar fled the country.144 The collapse of the monarchy and the Bakhtiyar government created a situation of "dual sovereignty"145 in revolutionary Iran. A provisional government that had the blessing of Khomeini and was headed by Bazargan technically exercised state authority. Its officials were largely lay members of the National Front. Nonetheless, real political power now rested with Khomeini and his clerical associates; they held the loyalty of the majority of poor and lower-middle-class Iranians who had served as the foot soldiers of the revolution. Khomeini selected a group of clergy and laymen known as the Islamic Revolutionary Council to oversee government policy until a totally new government system could be created. To accelerate this, he insisted that a referendum immediately be submitted to the people. Voters were given only the option of declaring yes or no to the proposal to establish an Islamic Republic; an idea that achieved a huge majority in its favor. Khomeini and his followers formed their own political party, the Islamic Republican Party, which won the largest bloc of seats in the newly created Assembly of Experts, on whose shoulders was laid the responsibility for writing a new constitution and forming a new government. On April 1, 1979, Khomeini proclaimed the advent of the Islamic Republic of Iran.146

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The new constitution called for an elected parliament that included both clergy and lay members (who had to be approved as good Muslims and supporters of the constitution before they were allowed to run), a separate and popularly elected president, and a supreme court, known as the Council of Guardians. This council was to be composed of six clerics and six laymen selected respectively by the clergy and the parliament, to serve six-year terms. The Council of Guardians was given the authority to approve candidates for parliament and to rule on whether any act of government or law passed by parliament violated either the constitution or Islamic law.147 At the ideological core of the new constitution was the premise that ultimate sovereignty over the political system belonged to God. Any other basis for sovereignty, whether the people, a ruling dynasty, or conformity to another ideology, was not in keeping with the laws of Islam and was therefore unacceptable. Just as Khomeini had written, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, God's will was to be expressed through the "rule of the just Islamic jurist," the velayat-e faqih. The role of this individual was to provide advice to the parliament and the president. He possessed the power to overrule the government or any part of the government on any issue. "The new constitution made the faqih the central figure in the political order, enshrined the dominance of the clerical community over the institutions of the state, entrenched Islamic jurisprudence as the foundation for the country's laws and legal system, and limited individual freedom to what was permissible under Islam."148 The first faqih of the Islamic Republic was Ayatollah Khomeini, who was to serve for life. His successors were to be selected by the Assembly of Experts. Under circumstances where no single individual was perceived to be qualified for the position, a committee of three or five could be selected to fill the role.149 The Iranian revolution of 1978-1979 engendered a fundamental transformation of Iranian society along two important dimensions. First was a dramatic transformation of the composition of the ruling elite. "In this respect, change in Iran since 1979 is surely comparable to that in Russia after 1917."150The former sociopolitical elites were thoroughly purged from the government, and sociopolitical power was completely redistributed. Second, there has been a significant alteration in the source of identity in Iran. Before the revolution, identity was grounded in nationalism, a distinct pride in the secular Iran. Following the revolution, the primary source of identity in Iran dramatically shifted to Shi'a Islam. Perhaps most significant, Khomeini successfully achieved a comprehensive implementation of Islamic holy law into every facet of Iranian life.151 CONCLUSION Some critical uniformities emerge from our analysis of revolutionary leadership in the Chinese, Mexican Indian, and Iranian cases. First, in all three cases a cult was created around an individual who came to symbolize the goals and aspirations of the revolutionary movement itself. The cult


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was constructed around the acknowledged leader of the popular revolution; one who enjoyed enormous prestige among the masses and of whom it was widely believed possessed superhuman, divinely ordained powers of leadership. Second, the cult was identified with a popular movement during the revolutionary years and, in China and Iran, retained that identity in the postrevolutionary era through the mobilization of the masses for radical social change. In Mexico, the assassination of Zapata and the subsequent co-optation of Zapatista leaders into a new, more moderate coalition, had an abrupt impact on the real viability of the movement. Third, in all three cases, the cult was consistently identified with the needs and concerns of its adherents and was employed to serve their interests and aspirations. Indeed, the legitimacy of the cult was provided by the millenarian beliefs and yearnings of the people themselves. The disastrous circumstances created by the effects of foreign economic and cultural domination, coupled with a myriad of other stressful factors—war, famine, loss of communal lands, rapid cultural change, humiliation, and natural disasters—led the peoples of these societies to seek out a savior figure who would deliver them from such upheaval and usher in a Utopian paradise free from foreigners. In this way millenarianism functioned, in all three societies, as a platform for leadership, awaiting the opportunity to elevate a seemingly divinely inspired, charismatic figure to a leadership role in which he would guide society to salvation. Finally, in all three cases, the cult figure successfully crafted a revolutionary ideology out of an effective and highly appealing fusion of traditional religious inspired millenarian beliefs with that of more modern, secular, "scientific" programs of historical development and human progress. This fusion engendered a revolutionary movement bent on sociopolitical and economic transformation that was specifically customized to the needs and yearnings of these three societies: Maoism in China, the unique blend of anarcho-syndicalism and Indian millenarianism of the Zapatistas, and the reworking of a powerful Shi'a ideological tradition by both Khomeini and Shariati to fit the particular socioeconomic and political circumstances of late-twentieth-century Iran. The relationship between the actions implied by the idea of imminent salvation and the role of these three cult leaders was of critical importance. In each case the leader directed and focused existing millenarian aspirations already implicit in the ideology of the movement. Indeed, the influence of the cult leader was critical to the releasing of the militant potential of this fusion of ideologies. These three movements represented a blending of traditional and more modern ideological foundations. Yet they exhibited various degrees of explicitly political and religious characteristics. In Iran, the revolutionary movement led by Khomeini was far more explicitly religious in its symbolism than the Maoism of China. The Zapatistas, although they effectively utilized religious symbols, were explicitly secular in their espoused ideologies. Nonetheless, in all three cases these movements performed a religiouslike function for their adherents. The inevitability of change was widely accepted and

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critical to action by the movement. The outcome, arising out of disaster, was considered to be certain and the change it would engender was expected to be total and complete social salvation. In all three cases the ancient idea of millenarianism was transformed largely according to the needs of society. Much like its transformation in the West, millenarianism moved from a magical base to a human base. It provoked the idea of social change through the efforts of man, not God. NOTES 1. Maxwell Taylor, The Fanatics: A Behavioural Approach to Political Violence (London: Brassey's, 1991), 140. 2. Ann Ruth Willner, The Spellbinders: Charismatic Political Leadership (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 18-19; Sylvia L. Thrupp, "Millennial Dreams in Action: A Report on the Conference Discussion," in Millennial Dreams in Action, ed. idem (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1962), 23. 3. Taylor, 142-43. 4. Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, translated from the French by Joseph Ward Swain (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1915; reprint, New York: Free Press, 1965), 474-79. 5. F. P. Kilpatrickt "Problems of Perception in Extreme Situations," Human Organiz tion 16 (Summer 1957): 21. 6. Ibid., 21. 7. Gary Wills, Certain Trumpets: The Call of Leaders (New York: Simon & Schust 1994), 17. The goal of the organization, group, or movement, is "also the equalizer between the leader and followers. The followers do not submit to the person of the leader. They join him or her in pursuit of the goal." 8. Wallace, "Revitalization Movements," 274. 9. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 60, 84-85. 10. Pitirim A. Sorokin, Man and Society in Calamity: Tlje Effects of War, Revolutio Famine, Pestilence upon Human Mind, Behavior, Social Organization and Cultural Lif (New York: Dutton, 1942; reprint, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1968), 187. 11. Barkun, Disaster and the Millennium, 181. 12. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 85. 13. Paul Wilkinson, Social Movement, (New York: Praeger, 1971), 60. 14. Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, ed. and introduced by Talcott Parsons (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1964), 358-59. 15. Ibid., 359. 16. Ibid., 359. 17. Ibid., 359. 18. Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, vol. 2, ed. Guenther Roth and ClausWittich (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 1112-13 19. William H. Friedland, "For a Sociological Concept of Charisma," Social Forces 433 (October 1964): 18-26. 20. Ann Ruth Willner and Dorothy Willner, "The Rise and Role of Charismatic Leaders Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 358 (March 1965), 82-84 21. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 169-81.


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22. Prasenjit Duara, Culture, Power, and the State: Rural North China, 1900-1942 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988). 23. Chesneaux, Peasant Revolts in China, 72. 24. Ibid., 78-80. 25. Perry, 167. 26. Jean Chesneaux, Francoise Le Barbier, and Marie-Claire Bergere, China: From the 1911 Revolution to Liberation, translated from the French by Paul Auster and Lydia Davis (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977), 115-16. 27. Ibid., 194. 28. Perry, 203. 29. Ibid., 204. She cites Chang Chen-chih, Ko-ming yu tsung-chiao (Revolution and Religion), (Shanghai, 1929), 134,146-47; ChichCh* cn-sh\h,Hung-ch'iang-huichenhsiang (The tmth about the Red Spear society], 16-17; and Tanaka Tadao, "Chung-kuo nung-min ti li-ts'un wen-t'i" (The problem of village out migration among Chinese peasants), in Chung-kuo mung-min wen-t'i yu nung-min yun-tung, ed. Wang Chung-ming (Shanghai, 1929). 30. Chesneaux, Peasant Revolts in China, 84; see also Wright, 45-47, for a brief look at Sun Yat-sen's ties with secret societies in both domestic China and their counterparts in the overseas Chinese communities. 31. Ibid., 83. 32. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 182. 33. Quoted in ibid., 182. 34. Ibid., 182-83. 35. Ibid., 204-8. 36. Ibid., 210. 37. Jonathan Spence, To Change China: Western Advisers in China, 1620-1960 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), 185-87. 38. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 213. 39. Ibid., 220-21. 40. Quoted in Lloyd E. Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China under Nationalist Rule, 1927-1937 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974), 5. 41. Meisner, 157. The cult that surrounded the Long March, which emerged in the 1930s, held its "sacred character three decades later when, during The Great Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, youthful Red Guards embarked on their own Tong marches' to demonstrate their faith in Mao and in the power of his 'thought.' " 42. Suzanne Pepper, Civi7 War in China: The Political Struggle, 1945-1949 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 7. 43. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 241. 44. Quoted in Pepper, 8; she cites John S. Service, TheAmerasia Papers: Some Problems in the History of U.S.-China Relations (Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, China Research Monographs, University of California, Berkeley, 1971). 45. Pepper, 8-10. 46. Ibid., 9-41. 47. Chesneaux, Peasant Revolts in China, 1333-36. 48. Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1965), 1:308. 49. Pepper, 7-8; see also Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 245. 50. Scholars of China have drawn the conclusion that the profound heritage of peasant rebellion in China was a contributing factor in the success of the communist movement in

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the 1930s and 1940s. Such a heritage provided "a source of inspiration" as well as "a familiar frame of reference for peasants who joined the movement." Perry, 7. See also Robert Thaxton, 'Tenants in Revolution: The Tenacity of Traditional Morality," Modem China 1 (1975): 323-57. 51. Mao Tse-tung, "Report of an Investigation into the Peasant Movement in Hunan," in Selected Works, 1:22. 52. Chesneaux, Peasant Revolts in China, 101. 53. For a detailed analysis of the convergence of the Red Spears movement with that of the CCP in one northern province of China, see Perry, 213-47. See also Chesneaux, LeBarbier, and Bergere, 168,292. 54. Chesneaux, LeBarbier, and Bergere, 348. 55. Chesneaux, Peasant Revolts in China, 152. 56. Mao Tse-tung, 4The Sinification of Marxism," extracted from chapter 7 of idem, On the New Stage (Lun Hsin Chieh-tuan: Chieh-fang She, 1939), a report to the Sixth Plenum of the Sixth Central Committee, in October 1938, in Stuart R. Schram, The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung (New York: Praeger, 1963), 112-15. 57. Nonetheless, it should be noted that Dr. Li Zhisui, who served as Mao's personal physician from 1954 until the chairman's death in 1976, asserts that in contrast to Chiang Kai-shek, whom Li perceived of as "aloof," "demanding subservience from everyone," and "invariably alienating," Mao was truly a "magnetic force." cf. Dr. Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, translated by Tai Hung-chao (New York: Random House, 1994), 52. 58. Meisner, 159. 59. Ibid., 159. 60. Ibid., 159. 61. Quoted in ibid., 159. Cf. Liu Shao-ch'i, Collected Works of Liu Shao-ch'i (Hong Kong: Union Research Institute, 1968), 30-31. 62. Ibid., 159-60. 63. Mao Tse-tung, 'Talks at the Chengtu Conference," in Mao Tse-tung Unrehearsed: Talks and Letters 1956-71, ed. Stuart R. Schram (Middlesex: Penguin, 1974), 99-100. 64. Cf. Schurmann, 520-23. Whereas Mao emphasized the role of the masses and the importance of class struggle, and held a deep belief that the forces of society controlled the state, Liu and Deng, in contrast, emphasized the primacy of the party as organization. Their "advocacy of [a] careful, painstaking buildup of the Party follows the Soviet approach, where the Party has become a sacred untouchable entity." (522) In this sense, Mao demonstrated a more Marxist approach to communism in China than the "pragmatists" who followed a distinct Leninist line. 65. Meisner, 160. 66. Alan Knight, "Revolutionary Project, Recalcitrant People: Mexico, 1910-1940," in The Revolutionary Process in Mexico: Essays on Political and Social Change, 1880-1940, ed. Jaime E. Rodriguez O. (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), 227. 67. Frank R. Brandenburg, The Making of Modern Mexico (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1964), 47. 68. Roger D. Hansen, The Politics of Mexican Development (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971), 152; see also Judith Adler Hellman, Mexico in Crisis, 2nd ed. (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1988), 4. 69. Hellman, 4. For a comprehensive overview of those factors that contributed to the alienation of the northern elites and the eventual collapse of the Diaz regime, see Hansen, 146-56.


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70. Hellman, 4. 71. Ibid., 4-5. 72. Ibid., 5. 73. Ibid., 6. 74. Ibid., 6. 75. Madero and his followers lacked any revolutionary theory and thus were "woefully unprepared to lead an authentic Revolution." Ruiz, 318. 76. Hellman, 12. 77. Womack, 67. 78. Brandenburg, 49. 79. Cockcroft, 186. 80. Womack, 127. 81. John H. McNeely, "Origins of the Zapata Revolt in Morelos," Hispanic American Historical Review 46 (May 1966): 153-69. 82. Cockcroft, 58; Womack, 126. 83. McNeely, 167. 84. Womack, 193. It should be noted that when the offices of the organization in Mexico City were closed by the government, its membership split. "Many went underground in the capital, later to join the Carrancistas and help organize workers into Red Batallions." Many others joined the Zapatistas in Morelos. 85. Womack, 193-94; He cities Rosendo Salazar, La Casa del Obrero Mundial (Mexico, 1962), 1454-9, 187, 212-15; Miguel Mendoza L. Schwerdtfeger, Tierra Libre! (Mexico, 1915), plus personal interviews of Antonio Diaz Soto y Gama. 86. MacLachlan, xi. 87. Ibid., 6. 88. Gilly, 276. 89. Ivie E. Cadenhead, Jr., "The American Socialists and the Mexican Revolution of 1910," Southwestern Social Science Quarterly (September 1962): 113; he cites the New York Oi//, July 14,1914. 90. Ibid., 113; Cadenhead cites the New York Call (April 3, 1913). 91. Ibid., 55, 76, 100; also Cockcroft, 231. 92. Womack, 393. 93. McNeely, 166. 94. Ibid., 162; Gilly, 64. 95. Quoted in Womack, 242. 96. Ibid., 328; Gilly compares the Zapatistas to the "peasantrisingsof Munzer [sic] in Germany o r . . . the Diggers in England" (328). See also, John M. Hart, Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class, 1860-1931 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978), 60-61; Hart asserts "The effect of millenarianism in the Mexican countryside has not yet been treated adequately, but testimony to its presence is found in the religiosity of the Zapatista army of the revolution and in the spontaneous land redistributions carried out" (60). 97. Wolf, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century, 28-29. The symbols of the Virginof Guadalupe provided the Zapatista Army with the visual manifestation of their desire to "return to a more pristine supernatural state" (29). 98. Ibid., 29. 99. El lmparcial, Mexico City, April 10,1912; quoted in Gilly, 88.

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100. Brandenburg, 50. It appears that Madero's political ideas were profoundly outmoded and stuck in nineteenth-century liberalism. His political goals apparently included rebellion merely for the sake of achieving political office. See also Ruiz, 319. 101. Hellman, 15. 102. Ibid., 17. 103. Daniel C Levy, "The Mexican Government's Loosening Grip?" Current History 86 (March 1987): 113. 104. Henry Banford Parkes, A History of Mexico (London: Shenval Press, 1962), 309. 105. Since the ancient period, the Indians of Mesoamerica have considered the hills and mountains of their region as sacred places—as the "points where the heavens and the earth joined, equivalent to the center of the world." Florescano, 13. See also Guillermo de la Pena, A Legacy of Promises: Agriculture, Politics, and Ritual in the morelos Highlands of Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981). "For the people of the Morelos Highlands it was clear that the killers of Zapata could not be revolutionaries. The Myth of Zapata's resurrection started: it was said that he had appeared riding a white horse across the Ajusco. Some people asserted that he was hiding somewhere—in Arabia, perhaps, for the newspapers were full of stories about rebellions and guerillas in the Middle East" (76). 106. Gruzinski, 187. 107. Quoted in Oscar Lewis, Pedro Martinez: A Mexican Peasant and His Family (New York: Vintage Books, 1967), 108. 108. Womack, 366-67; Womack asserts that Obregon assisted Zapata's lieutenant, Antonio Diaz Soto y Gama, in founding The National Agrarita Party, which in the 1920 congressional elections gained seven deputy seats. Diaz Soto y Gama and Zapata's successor, Gildardo Magana later possessed strong influence in the Mexican national government, particularly on questions of agricultural policy and land reform. 109. Gad C. Gilbar, "Persian Agriculture in the Late Qajar Period, 1860-1906: Some Economic and Social Aspects/' Asian and African Studies 12, no. 3 (1978): 312-65. 110. Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 31. 111. Gilbar, 312. 112. It should be noted that this was not the first attempt by the Pahlavi dynasty to reduce the social and political power of the Shi'a clergy in Iran. Although he initially sought to build a solid relationship with the ulama through his support of Shi'a as the state religion, the Shah's father, Reza Shah, nonetheless came to pursue policies that attempted to restrict the power of the ulama in Iranian social and political life, in the 1920s and 1930s. See Akhavi, 28-59. 113. Akhavi, see especially chapter 4, "Ulama-State Confrontation and Defeat of the Clergy, 1959-1963," 91-116. 114. Ibid., 23. 115. Quoted in ibid., 23. This was originally cited in Hamid Algar, 'The Oppositional Role of the Ulama in Twentieth century Iran, " in Scholars, Saints, and Sufis, ed. Nikki Keddie (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 252-53. 116. Ibid., 23. 117. Michael M. J. Fischer, Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980), 9. Ironically, by suppressing religious and political opposition to his regime, the Shah eventually made Shi'ism the primary language of political protest in Iran. 118. Arjomand, 'Traditionalism in T\ventieth-century Iran," in From Nationalism to Revolutionary Islam, ed. idem (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), 221.


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119. Akhavi, 23. 120. Quoted in ibid., 60. 121. Ruh Allah Khomeini, Islam and Revolution, translated and edited by Hamid Alga (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1981), 27. The majority of this text is a translation of Khomeini's Islamic Government, a book that originated in a series of lectures given by Khomeini at Naj between January 21 and February 8, 1970. In this book Khomeini details the theoretical bases of his religio-political philosophy, the need for an Islamic government, the specific form of such a government, and a program for the establishment of an Islamic government in Iran. 122. Khomeini, 32. 123. Arjomand, 'Traditionalism in TVventieth-century Iran," 60-61. 124. Khomeini, 34. 125. Ibid., 202. 126. Ibid., 55-56,62. 127. Ibid., 61. 128. Ibid., 61-62. 129. Khumayni, Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhullah Musawi, "Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhullah Musawi Khumayni and Wilayat4 Faqih," in Expectation of the Millennium: Shi'ism in History, ed. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Hamid Dabashi, and Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 356. Mohaddessin defines the velayat-e-faqih as "the guardianship of the religious jurist." "The essence of the theory, developed and applied by Khomeini, is that one man with a thorough knowledge of Islamic law is designated as vali-e-faqih, heir to the Prophet Muhammad and the Imams. He also acts as vice regent to the Mahdi, the messianic TWelfth Imam of Shi'ite Islam. The vali wields absolute authority and sovereignty over the affairs of the entire Muslim nation. No public or private matter concerning a Muslim or anyone else living in the Islamic world is beyond the vali's jurisdiction" (17). See also Akhavi. He defines valayat as "allegiance to the mle of the imams; their mle on the basis of their ability to interpret the holy law, especially its esoteric meanings" (xiii). 130. Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin, 22. 131. Ibid., 63. 132. Khomeini, 102. 133. Arjomand, The Shadow of God, 268-69. 134. Abrahamian,77ti Iranian Mojahedin, 21-23. Rather than preaching the "quietism suggested by many other members of the ulama, Khomeini pressed the Shi'a faithful to "protest actively against tyranny, bad government, and oppression. And instead of tolerating the institution of monarchy as a lesser evil to that of complete social anarchy . . . he argued that Shiism and monarchism were incompatible and that the only form of mle acceptable was that of Islamic government; later he defined this as the Islamic Republic." 135. Arjomand, "Millennial Beliefs, Hierocratic Authority, and Revolution in Shi'ite Iran," 230. See also Shaul Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs, 19. Bakhash asserts tha "to millions of Iranians [Khomeini] came to be seen, like the Old Testament prophets, as the bot-shekan, the idol-smasher, and as the Imam, the religious and political leader of the community" (the emphasis is Bakhash's). 136. Khomeini, 66. 137. Skocpol, "Rentier State and Shi'a Islam in the Iranian Revolution," 277. 138. Khomeini, 50-51.

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139. Shaul Bakhash, "Sermons, Revolutionary Pamphleteering and Mobilisation: Iran, 1978," in From Nationalism to Revolutionary Islam, ed. Said Amir Arjomand (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), 180. For example, he instmcted his followers to utilize the "forty-day interval mourning procession for the martyrs of previous demonstrations and those Shi'a religious holidays commemorating sacrifice or heroic deeds as opportunities for new and ever larger protests. Indeed, it was after listening to mosque sermons, in a pattern that occurred repeatedly, that crowds emerged in large cities like Shiraz and Yazd, and small towns like Shahsavar, Jahrom and Behbahan, to demonstrate, protest, and clash with security forces and attack particular targets." 140. Ibid., 232-33. 141. Ibid, 255. 142. Robin Wright, In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), 37. 143. V. S. Naipaul, Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey (New York: Vintage Books, 1982), 9. 144. Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 256-67. 145. Cf. Brinton, 133. In the Brintonian model of revolution, "dual sovereignty" occurs during the second stage after a moderate reform party has taken power. Nonetheless, as soon as the moderates assume control they are attacked by extremists from both sides of the political spectrum. Brinton defines the concept as "[two] conflicting chains of institutions providing two conflicting sets of decisions." The one set of institutions is the legal government headed by the moderates; the other is the extremists' organization, which, while illegal, usually commands more support. 146. Khomeini, 266. 147. Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin, 54-58. 148. Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs, 83. The preamble to the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran reads: "Based on the principle of the Guardianship of the Islamic State and the Leadership of the Muslim Nation, the Constitution provides a basis for the leadership of a fully qualified/a^t/i whom the people consider as Leader, to ensure that no institution deviates from its Islamic mandate." Principle 57 of the Constitution affirms that "the legislative, executive, and judicial branches in the Islamic Republic of Iran are under the supervision of the vali-e-faqih and the Imam of the Islamic ummah " while principle 4 declares "All civil, penal, monetary, cultural, military, and political laws must be based on the Islamic principles." Reprinted in Mohaddessin, 23. 149. Bakhash, 84. 150.Cottam,55. 151. Cf. Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs, 4. The Iranian revolution was a "cataclysmic event which has resulted in an extensive transformation of the country's political, social, and economic stmcture."

5 The Therapeutic Functi

has the capacity to restore a society to a spiritual wholeness. MAsillenarianism a result, such a system of beliefs possesses a powerful therapeutic capability. It provides the firm foundation for a social healing and restorative process to take place following the experience of cultural, economic, and natural catastrophe. Such a process is not only beneficial to the mental and emotional health of the individual person but, just as important, it is a necessity if the overall society is to sustain itself. An important factor that contributes to such a social healing is the boundless, utopian-seeking quality of millenarian beliefs. Such beliefs allow the potential for ideological foundations to be shaped into a call for complete, unqualified and, if necessary, violent, total, societal change that will seemingly rectify all social maladies.1 It is not always a simple task to identify the political center of revolutionary millenarian movements, largely because their lack of sophistication and an effective strategy "makes them push their rationale for revolution often to the point of contradiction."2 Nonetheless, such movements often exhibit a remarkably pragmatic and curative approach to solving the problems experienced by the societies in which they emerge. As a result, millenarian movements represent a form of revitalization movement. They offer therapeutic and curative alternate beliefs and solutions that will seemingly rectify all social problems and relieve severe collective stress. They function as a form of group therapy, which permits "disturbed individuals to repair morale through an intense group experience."3 As early as 1919, Mao predicted that the long history of oppression suffered by the Chinese people at the hands of foreigners would eventually be followed by a period characterized by total societal transformation; "that the humiliation and

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weakness of China would be followed by China's emergence as a leading nation."4 It is therefore not surprising that Mao's search for an entirely new social order became the primary thrust of his movement, both during and following the revolution. He presented the simple yet potent message that it was the people themselves who possessed the ability to create an improved environment if they would only organize their social and productive efforts into a modern unified communist nation.5 During the 1930s, Mao pursued a rather practical approach to going about resolving the problems in the Yenan communes. Frequently, in the process he transformed Chinese cultural norms and ultimately reversed age-old social practices. For example, he sought full equality for women, an idea that confronted age-old Chinese social norms. In 1931, he asserted: Under feudal domination, marriage is a barbaric and inhuman institution Free choice must be the basic principle of every marriage. The whole feudal system of marriage, including the power of parents to arrange marriages for their children, to exercise compulsion, and all purchase and sale in marriage contracts shall henceforth be abolished. Althoug women have obtained freedom from the feudal yoke, they are still laboring under tremendou physical handicaps (for example, the binding of feet) and have not obtained complete economic independence. Therefore on questions concerning divorce, it becomes necessary to protect the interests of women and place the greater part of the obligations and responsibilities entailed by divorce upon men.6 In short, according to Mao, the Chinese version of the communist Utopia was to be a paradise built on equality among the sexes. In 1933, when the KMT placed an economic blockade around the peasant base areas, Mao emphasized the importance of production and self-sufficiency. He set about organizing not only cooperatives and mutual-aid teams, but also individual and small-craft activities as well. He set out to reestablish small handicraft industries, which had declined in the 1920s. "Even state-organized handicraft production of essential commodities, such as cloth, medicine, farm tools, and paper was started."7 Mao overlaid the modern revolutionary concepts of "national salvation" and socialism onto the peasant struggle against foreign imperialism and economic oppression. As a result, he moved the traditional focus of rebellion in China away from the Golden Age of the past and toward a better future. Once it had assumed the reins of power in 1949, the CCP was able to achieve a comprehensive rebuilding of the foundations of Chinese society. Former ruling elites were almost completely displaced, and many of their members were executed. In their place emerged a new ruling class that was composed of professional revolutionaries that had contributed to the rise of communism. They were able to implement significant changes in the institutions of government and in society as a whole.8

The Ther nction 153

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Behind this sociopolitical and economic transformation lay Mao's short-term goal of strengthening the CCP's control of the state apparatus, which he saw as an instrument for the achievement of communism in China: Don't you want to abolish state power? Yes, we do, but not right now; we cannot do it yet. Why? Because imperialism still exists, because domestic reaction still exists, because classes still exist in our country. Our present task is to strengthen the people's state apparatus-mainl the people's army, the people's police, and the people's courts-in order to consolidate nation defense and protect the people's interests. Given this condition, China can develop steadily, under the leadership of the working class and the Communist Party, from an agricultural int an industrial country and from a new-democratic into a socialist and communist society, abolish classes, and realize the Great Harmony [Ta Tung]. 9 The values espoused by Mao Tse-tung possessed both ascetic and profoundly Utopian qualities. "The sin of selfishness and the virtue of self-denial, the ethical value of hard work, frugality, self-discipline, diligence, and honesty-such are the moral maxims imparted to the Chinese people, and particularly to Chinese youth."10 Nonetheless, these values were not presented "as ends unto themselves, but as the means of achieving the ultimate goal of social transformation and the promised communist Utopia."11 In this way, Mao mobilized popular support in the hope of effecting continued revolutionary change in Chinese society. He attempted to transform the idea of revolution into a continuous process demonstrated by the "cycles and marked social spasms" of the Great Leap Forward of 1958-1960, and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976. 12 During the Great Leap Forward campaign, launched in 1958, expectations were stirred up in rural China by the idea that collectivization would "result in the more or less immediate advent of a communist Utopia."13 "Three years of struggle were to be followed by a thousand years of happiness, a popular slogan promised, and it was envisioned that China would achieve the economic levels of the industrialized nations within fifteen years."14 But more important than material goals, the Great Leap Forward was proclaimed to be the period of transition from socialism to communism. The ultimate goal of classical Marxism, which had often been thought of only in terms of the distant future, became an immediate goal to be undertaken here and now. The millenarianism that characterized the early phases of the campaign was accompanied by the "glorification of both the person and thought of Mao Tse-tung."15 At the very center of the internal politics of China at this time was the question of how the nation could successfully implement communism and also recover its leadership of mankind, a role in which it had seen itself throughout the course of its history. The "pragmatists," whom Mao dismissed as revisionists, attempted to increase international contacts (including closer ties with the Soviet Union). At the same time, they sought to retain whatever they could of their spiritual past as the country was transformed into a socialist state. As far as they were concerned, China's claim to a leadership role in the international community was a function of

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not only its massive size and huge population, but also its "distinct and abundant historical experience."16 In response, in the spring of 1958, Mao published an essay which completely rejected these efforts to explain China's low level of development when compared to the West. He characterized the Chinese nation as a pristine and "blank" entity primed for development and progress. His efforts in achieving this characterization centered around an attempt to construe China's entire past as null and void by disavowing her long and distinct history. Indeed, the only importance of the Chinese people within the family of nations, he wrote, was largely a function of China's immense population. Otherwise China was partly poor and partly "blank." In other words, China was, as yet, an unwritten page in world history, and it was up to the present generation to begin to create that history. China's 600 million people have two remarkable peculiarities; they are, first of all poor, and secondly, blank. That may seem like a bad thing, but it is really a good thing A clean sheet of paper has no blotches, and so the newest and most beautiful words can be written on it, the most beautiful can be painted on it. The tatsepao [opinions and criticisms written out in bold Chinese characters on large sheets of paper and pasted freely for everyone to se is a most useful new weapon.17 Mao argued that the peculiar "blank" nature of the Chinese people, a sort of national tabula rasa, was indicative of something to be cherished, not something to be humiliated by. Such a "blank" nature inherently implied that Chinese man was a "pure" and a "new" man. Much like the vision Hung Hsiu-ch'uan had experienced during his visit to heaven in a dream, Mao's new Chinese man was one whose bodily organs and old beliefs had been replaced by new ones. In this context, the spiritual transformation of the Chinese people by the CCP takes on its true meaning and "accounts for its deliberately deep penetration of all parts of the individual mind and personality."18 Mao's concept of "permanent revolution," which was manifested most explicitly in the Great Leap Forward movement of the 1950s and the Great Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, raises a very important question relevant to our study: Is there a contradiction between the attainment of Utopia and the concept of permanent revolution? As it is described in Maoist literature, the doctrine of pu-tuan ko-ming, "uninterrupted" or "permanent revolution," is one that recognizes that the goal of communism "can be achieved only in the future." Nevertheless, it also requires that revolutionary actions taken here and now must proceed in a "continuous" fashion so as "to pave the way for the realization of these ideals." The critical value of this doctrine for Maoists lay less in a belief in its validity as a "scientific" description of the laws of historical development than in the belief that if "the spirit of uninterrupted revolution" is "grasped by the revolutionary masses," it will guide and motivate their actions—for, as was often proclaimed, "it is the masses of the people who are the creators of history."19

The Therapeutic Function

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In contrast to Marx, Mao did not believe in the notion that a communist society would be achieved as the result of "the forces of history." Rather, such a society was based on a devout confidence in the revolutionary potential of the mass of Chinese peasants. And, he was convinced, agitation among the peasants had to be continuously pursued until communism was achieved. His primary fear was that the Chinese Revolution would lose its passion and zeal before Utopia was realized. He was particularly concerned that the next generation of Chinese would not understand the revolution. As a result, he sought to create opportunities for them to participate in it. Much like his generation, which had been forced to endure and survive the disaster of the Long March in the 1930s, Mao believed that it was necessary for the younger generation to experience their own form of disaster and revitalization.20 "A cultural revolution anywhere involves a collective shift in the psychic images around which life is organized. In Maoist China, however, it has meant nothing less than an all-encompassing death-and-rebirth experience, an induced catastrophe with a prescription for reconstituting the world being destroyed."21 As a result, the Great Chinese Cultural Revolution was a synthetic catastrophe, specifically "manufactured" to perpetuate the concept of permanent revolution. Mao utilized the spontaneity of youth to continue the revolution. One of the more important millenarian manifestations of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and early 1970s was its explicitly religious symbolism. Just as traditional Chinese emperors had been the "Sons of Heaven" whose stature guaranteed a spiritual harmony in Chinese society, in a similar symbolic undertaking, "Heaven" became the emblem of Mao Tse-tung. In a shrewd manipulation and combination of traditional Chinese and twentieth-century revolutionary symbolism, the "Mao-sun" was touted as "the reddest of all suns" whose radiance dwelt in the hearts of all true revolutionaries.22 As a young Red Guard remembers a trip to Beijing in December 1966: I had seen youths on the sidewalk selling photos of Chairman Mao receiving thefirstgroup of Red Guards. A pack of ten cost eight mao, which seemed rather expensive. But the idea of returning [home] with a Chairman Mao badge captivated me I ran off to find a photo dealer, came back with two packs, and bartered them for two small badges. I pinned one on my chest and the other inside my pocket. I was sure I could feel Chairman Mao's radiance burning into me.23 Hearkening back to imagery associated with traditional Taoism, the "thoughts of Mao" were said to be the "magic weapon" that would destroy all enemies who themselves were portrayed as demonic "monsters," "cow-ghosts," and "snakegods."24 Indeed, Mao was a messiah who would cleanse the Chinese people of impure imperialist and foreign ways, and allow them to establish a pure society of their own creation.25 Mao's goals were boundless and truly millenarian in scope. He sought the complete make over of Chinese society and its ultimate salvation, by breaking the deep-lying traditional cultural norms and values of Chinese society, which he

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perceived as malevolent and was convinced were the primary factors restricting China's development in the modern world. Indeed, Mao, and other Chinese intellectuals of his time had been attracted to communism largely because they felt that within its doctrines lay a hope for a better future for China, the opportunity to achieve their burning desire for independence and a place of equality, respect, and esteem in the eyes of the world. They believed, and not without justification, "that the world saw China as disorganized and backward. Communism offered the dream of national vindication and salvation in the face of Western imperialism and humiliation."26 "The Chinese have always been a great, courageous, and industrious people," Mao asserted in 1949. It was only in modem times that they have fallen behind, and this was due solely to the oppression and exploitation of foreign imperialism and the domestic reactionary government. [Now] we have united ourselves and defeated both our foreign and domestic oppressors by means of the People's Liberation War and the people's great revolution, and we proclaim the People's Republic of China. Henceforth, our nation will enter the large family of peace-loving and freedom-loving nations of the world. It will work bravely and industriously to create its own civilization and happiness, and will, at the same time, promote world peace and freedom. Our nation will never again be an insulted nation. We have stood up. Our revolution has gained the sympathy and acclamation of the broad masses throughout the world. We have friends the world over.27 Some observers have suggested that autocratic leadership represents the norm and not the exception in Chinese culture, pointing to the historical fact that the country has been hard pressed to cope without it except during periods of transition toward a new autocracy.28 Indeed, one of the signs of the weakening of CCP power since the late 1980s, especially in the rural areas of China, has been the emergence of a "host of rustic emperors, each recruiting his band of followers in villages and promising to establish a new order." In .this way, a new generation of late-twentieth-century Sons of Heaven is flourishing in the largely traditional world of the contemporary Chinese countryside. Indeed, according to figures reported by a Chinese university specialist in the world of secret societies, in one prefecture of Hebei Province alone, in 1987-1988, the police dealt with eighty-one cases of "would-be emperors" organizing attempts to win the throne and a new social order.29 Emiliano Zapata's Plan of Ayala sought to remedy the destructive effects of the hacienda system through the reestablishment of the ejidos (communal lands), the creation of an agrarian commune, and the establishment of new town sites free from the interference of a corrupt and foreign-influenced national government.30 Additionally, the Zapatistas' Agrarian Law, issued in October 1915, was as original as their Plan of Ayala and was both pragmatic and strikingly simplistic in its approach to solving the problems of the Indian communities of Mexico.31 Indeed, after 1914 the Zapatistas looked increasingly like a social revolutionary movement, in addition to an agrarian movement. In the three years since the first appearance of the plan, and largely as a result of the importation of radical revolutionary


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programs from outside sources, its "underlying principles had grown considerably more radical under the impact of determined mass action."32 In their home state of Morelos, the Zapatistas practiced the true essence of the Ayala Plan, liquidating the basic centers of capitalism in the region: the sugar mills. In addition, they established a state government that sought to carry out much of their social agenda. Zapata and his general staff formed the only government in the South, particularly in Morelos, Guerrero, and part of Puebla. Under the direction of General Manuel Palafox, the Zapatistas communalized the sugar mills and distilleries of Morelos without providing any compensation to their owners. On the basis of state decrees ratified in 1914, Zapata set these mills in operation as state enterprises, and the profits were handed over to Zapatista headquarters and used for military expenditures and assistance to war widows.33 Politically, the Zapatistas created a formal organization known as the Consultative Center for Revolutionary Propaganda and Unification, in November 1916, under the leadership of Diaz Soto y Gama. The explicit purpose of the center was to help the population of the Morelos commune in the revitalizing and rebuilding of their society, which had been severely ravaged by five years of devastating war. Specifically, it was to deliver lectures in the villages on the progress of the revolution; to give public readings and explanations of headquarters manifestos, decrees, and circulars; and to mediate disputes between local chiefs, between chiefs and pueblos, and between pueblos. From this experience they were to advise Zapatista headquarters in the framing of laws and reforms designed to ameliorate the problems of the commune. Most important, they were to organize subsidiary juntas in all villages under revolutionary control as Associations for the Defense of Revolutionary Principles.34 In December 1916, thefirstassociation was established by Soto y Gama, Gildaro Magana, and Enrique Bonilla at Tochimilco. In the following weeks, many others were formed throughout southwestern Puebla and central and eastern Morelos. There they functioned as local branches of the Zapatista party, the first popular organizations both civilian and secular that had ever existed in many of the villages. Although associates lacked authoritative responsibility and operated under "strict orders" not to meddle in the affairs of local governments in the region, in practice they dominated the area.33 As new associations formed, the members took responsibility for indoctrinating the community to the ways prescribed by the Zapatista functionaries—"reading and explaining headquarters announcements to local general juntas, ironing out neighborhood feuds, contracting revolutionary lecturers."36 They also sought to strengthen and expand the role of local public schools in order to upgrade the value of education available to the young people of Morelos. Nonetheless, their motive for service was principally the desire "to get propaganda into the bosom of families and to get the heads of these [families] to inculcate good principles in their children and other relatives, to make them take an interest in the revolution and understand that on its triumph depends the happiness of honest" Mexican workingmen.37

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Thus, while the Mexican nation was being shaken by turbulent political and military upheaval, the Zapatistas in Morelos and the surrounding states had shattered the rule of the haciendas and transferred power to the villages throughout the region. Beyond its role as an armed peasant movement, Zapatism expressed a desi to raise itself to the level of an autonomous state and, simultaneously, to seek support from the international socialist movement. The most important foreign center for the diffusion of Zapatista ideas and activities was established by General Jenaro Amezcua in Havana in late 1917. Amezcua carried on an abundant correspondence with working-class journalists and militants, especially in South America and the United States. In 1918, he published Revolutionary Mexico: To the Peoples of Europe and America, 19101918, which circulated throughout Latin America. It included a reprint of the Ayal Plan, the Agrarian Law and other Zapatista legislation, Zapata's public declaration and texts by Diaz Soto y Gama, as well as Argentinean and Uruguayan documents in support of the Mexican Revolution. For example, an article by the Uruguayan anarcho-syndicalist Juan Vidal, for example, described the Mexican Revolution as "a great step in human progress towards genuinefreedomwhich would serve as th world starting point for the coming historical movement of the human revolution and the triumph of our communist ideals."38 From its origins, the doctrine of the Imamate, which as we have seen stands at the centerpiece of Shi'a beliefs, has possessed an inherent therapeutic capability for its adherents. This belief in the eventual dispensation of the Hidden Imam as the expected Mahdi has helped the Shi'ite community to cope with "unbearable" political and social turmoil. "It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that witho such a belief in the role of the twelfth Imam, the Imamite religion might not have been able to survive persecutions under different dynasties in the course of Islamic history."39 Concurrent with the revival of Shi'a Islam in the 1960s and 1970s, there was also a growing trend among an influential group of Iranian intellectuals toward leftist and socialist interpretations of Islam, and Twelver Shi'ism in particular. Ideologically, this group was led by the Iranian sociologist Ali Shariati. Educated in Paris, where he was significantly influenced by both Marxist intellectuals and by militant Moslems, such as Ahmed Ben Bella, then head of the Algerian government, Shariati returned to Iran in 1965, only to be arrested and jailed for six months as a dissident. Following this he settled into a teaching career but, nonetheless, pursued his writings and lecturing.40 Shariati, writing in response to Western domination in Iran, sought to reconcile technological and cultural change going on in the country with the doctrines of Twelver Shi'ism. He was particularly interested in the problems of colonialism and neocolonialism and sought to be a religio-political thinker in the context of Third World liberation struggles. He was dismayed by the effects of cultural colonialism, which alienates peoples from their ethnic roots, and the effects of the growing Western cultural domination of his native Iran.41


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Shariati sought to lay the ideological foundation for the creation of a new nation of Iran, one that would be based on a true understanding of Islam and also would be free of the corruption of foreign imperialism. He successfully recast the doctrines of Shi'ism as a modern, "scientific" political ideology. In the process he sought to "bridge the gap between traditional Shi'ism and contemporary sociology." Islam, to Shariati, existed to provide the ideals and values for establishing a new order. He sought to do away with the traditional notion that until the Second Coming of the Hidden Imam, one must accept secular, unjust government. Shi'ism, he argued, had three stages: prophecy, Imamate, and Occultation. And the stage of Occultation should not be an era that is marked by "passive waiting" for the reappearance of the Imam. Rather, "it should be a time marked by the freedom to act in such a way as to pave the way for the reappearance of the Imam and the realization of absolute justice."42 In other words, man possessed the ability to create a Utopian world of justice and harmony, here and now. Shariati asserted that the true meaning of Shi'a Islam lies in the Persian word for religion (madhhab); a "path" that guides one's way in life. This path was intended to lead to an ultimate goal for society and was not intended to be worshipped as an end, or "aim," unto itself. When religion became such an end "rather than a means, as had become the case of Shi'ism," Shariati argued, humans became "lost."43 True Islam, Shariati argued, is an active, vigorous faith that asks its adherents to follow the example of its sacred prophets rather than mourn them. Muslims must fight repression and tyranny in an effort to establish the true Islamic community (umma). "The political philosophy of the form of the umma ... consists . . . of 'purity of leadership,' committed and revolutionary leadership, responsible for the movement and growth of society on the basis of its worldview and ideology, and for the realization of the divine destiny of man in the plan of creation. This is the true meaning of the imamate!"44Thus as long as the divinely appointed leader of the community, the Imam, is absent, it is with the people themselves that the ultimate responsibility and sovereignty must rest. Shariati believed that a charismatic Imam was capable of arising out of the people and expressing their collective will—an idea that, though it was not his intention, significantly complemented the thoughts of Khomeini. Indeed, Shariati's new political community would be built around such an authority. This widely accepted interpretation allowed Iranians to apply the title of Imam to Ayatollah Khomeini, as a legitimate, divine Imam and leader.45 Shari'ati promised that transformation was imminent and that its manifestation would usher in a the millennium in Iran. "He who is now the viceregent of God has traversed the difficult path of servitude, and carrying the burden of the Trust, he has now come to the end of history and the last frontier of nature. Resurrection is about to begin, and a project unfolds among God, man and love, a project for the creation of a new world, for telling the tale of a new creation."46 Shariati's writings significantly contributed to the mobilization of the Iranian society—particularly its youth. He "aroused the consciousness of many Iranians

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and galvanized them into a religio-political revolutionary movement." Indeed, he perhaps "did more than any other Iranian intellectual to prepare Iranian youth for revolutionary upheaval." In this context Shariati "became the ideologist of the revolution."48 Indeed, in many protests and demonstrations during the period leading up to the abdication of the Shah, Shariati's picture was often carried by protesters next to the portrait of Khomeini—the two most important symbols of the Iranian Revolution. Shariati successfully crafted a political ideology out of the dogma of Shi'ism. Indeed, this was the only form of ideology that could possibly have made a significant contribution to a mass-based revolution in Iran. No secular ideology could ever have made such an impact. If not framed in the context of Shi'ism, no political ideology of potential salvation, transformation, and revolution would have been acceptable to a majority of the Iranian people. Without a solid grounding in Islamic teachings and imagery, no ideology of revolution could have mobilized the masses for action. In short, it was this revolutionary aspect of the Shi'a faith that Shariati sought to utilize. "He single-handedly strove to reduce the devotional, contemplative, mystical, and institutional dimensions of Shi'ism, Islam as a revealed faith, to a total political ideology."49 Ayatollah Khomeini perceived of the new Islamic Republic of Iran as a gift from God, one that would bring about order and tranquility on earth.50 He asserted that the teachings of Islam contained an all-encompassing guide to life. The answers to all of humankind's problems and miseries were contained in its principles.51 And the establishment of the true Islamic state, which was embodied in Khomeini's Islamic Government, would serve as the effective tool for solving the economic and social problems of Iranians.52 Khomeini perceived of the implementation of the velayat-e faqih as not simply a concept that would be of benefit to Iranian society, but a necessity. The implementation of such a ruling authority possessed a profoundly therapeutic role. The existence of a holder of authority, a ruler who acts as trustee and maintains the institutio and laws of Islam, is a necessity—a ruler who prevents cruelty, oppression, and violation o therightsof others, who is trustworthy and vigilant guardian of God's creatures; who guide men to the teachings, doctrines, laws, and institutions of Islam; and who prevents the undesirable changes that atheists and the enemies of religion wish to introduce in the laws and institutions of Islam.53 Following their takeover of the Iranian government in 1979, the clerical populists of the Revolutionary Council had one important goal: to create the theocratic state structure and authority conceived by Khomeini in the velayat-e faqih (Mandate of the Clergy, or the Sovereignty of the Jurist).54 To achieve such an ideal, they realized it was necessary to bring a legitimate system of social justice to Iran by redistributing wealth, reducing poverty and unemployment; fully implementing the Shari'a, and eradicating drug addiction, alcoholism, and prostitution. It was to be a return to the rule of Ali: "the dream of the society ruled purely by faith."55


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In addition, the Islamic Republic sought to eliminate completely both Soviet expansionism and American imperialism in Iran. Their main foreign policy slogan was to be "neither East, nor West." "In short, populism was their main instrument; a clerical state their main goal."56 Indeed, one of the first acts of the Revolutionary Council was to help in "establishing, at the grass-roots level, food cooperatives to help the needy" and Shari'a courts to execute the religious laws. They attempted to deal with not only moral issues such as alcoholism, prostitution, and drug addiction, but also more serious crimes such as armed robbery and murder.57 MILLENARIANISM AND SOCIAL IDENTITY Experiences of severe social stress tend to give rise to certain psychological needs among the members of a society. The nature and intensity of the needs, and particularly the mechanism the society chooses to reduce the intensity of such stress, are strongly influenced by cultural and societal factors. Under severely difficult conditions of life, for example, the need for physical safety and the need to have confidence in one's ability to satisfy necessities, including food and shelter, are greatly heightened. The inability to take care of oneself and one's family and to control the circumstances of one's life greatly threatens the psychological self: the self-concept, values, beliefs, and ways of life of the individual and the group. In ways perhaps more important than any other, people define themselves by their memberships in groups. When "their" group (family, clan, village, or other) is in chaos, or at least functioning poorly and unable to provide its members with protection and a feeling of security, then their self-concept will become threatened, because all people have strong needs to "defend their personal and societal selfconcepts, or to improve on an already existing negative self-image."58 In a complementary way, a breakdown in the traditions and customary ways of life in a society profoundly challenges and threatens people's assumptions, not only assumptions about their self-concept, but also their interpretation and assumptions about the world. Under such circumstances, lacking clear beliefs that help make sense and guide one's relation to it, life becomesfilledwith uncertainty and anxiety. As a result, peoples' traditional worldview and comprehension of reality become untenable and they will seek a "renewed comprehension of reality," that is, a revitalization of their society.59 Acute social crisis, engendered by perceived disaster, results in a collective loss of identity that precipitates a revitalization movement as a device for achieving a new identification. This new cultural identification may be characterized by (1) a resurrection and reinstitutionalization of ancient socioeconomic ways, (2) the institutionalization of imported or newly invented ways, or, more likely, (3) the fusion of the old and the new. Nonetheless, the crisis is ultimately resolved "by a reaffirmation of identification with some definable cultural system."60 All three of these societies experienced both social dislocation and normative disturbances that were manifested in a high level of societal stress. The impact of a significantly different culture, the humiliation of foreign domination, and the

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transition from a stable village community to that of a rapidly changing and impersonal urban life were all components of the process of modernization in thes societies. Their impact was highly unsettling, creating widespread anxiety and "existential dread."61 Under such circumstances, a collective sense of stress arose throughout the entire community. In response, a new millenarian cult emerged to mitigate these collective anxieties and functioned to establish a clearer sense of identity.62 The dislocated groups had to be reintegrated into the community and, simultaneously, demanded inclusion and a greater degree of participation in political society as well. Millenarianism emerged to meet these demands and engendere revolutionary change. The material and emotional support afforded by traditional social and kinship groups in these societies was either disintegrating or had been destroyed. As a resu the customary, institutionalized methods of voicing an individual's grievances had been shattered. Two of the more important "affiliative needs" that are generally satisfied by social relationships in any society are (1) attachment, one's sense of security and comfort; and (2) a reassurance of worth, the sense of being a competent, valued, and contributing member of society. Indeed, the widespread fulfillment of these individual needs is a fundamental necessity to the maintenance of social stability.63 It is an important point of our study that the impact of Western imperialism severel weakened the ability of the social system in China, Mexico, and Iran to ensure the collective satisfaction of these needs. What was at issue in all three cases was the reconstruction of a meaningful identity in which people did not feel devalued by an alien culture but could feel a sense of continuity with their past, take pride in who they were, and reestablish a hope that their problems could be overcome. Millenarianism offered a standard and a doctrine around which one could reassert one's identity and self-esteem; it provided a common rallying point for those who sensed their place in society had-been lost. "The [millenarian] movemen enfolds its members in a belief system that provides meaning and explanation for virtually all problems and in a round of activities that allays feelings of personal insecurity and builds a new and strong sense of identity."64 In China, Mao's success at building his power base among the peasantry rested on three fundamental principles. First, he demonstrated an important flexibility in combining short-term and long-term goals. In the short term he espoused the principles of his New Democracy as a form of united-front doctrine that would embrace all the Chinese people who would subscribe to CCP leadership. For the long term, he steadily developed the party organization, including its control over the intellectuals.65 Second, Mao focused on finding out what the peasant wanted and committed his organization to giving it to them. Although this was a pragmatic approach to th problems of the peasants, it nonetheless represented a hope that their problems wer not insoluble, and manifested a curative and therapeutic sense of relief.66 The traditional peasant family, an important symbol of social unity and identity in China, had been disintegrating since the collapse of the Manchus. Warlord


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conflicts during the anarchy of the 1920s and 1930s, and heavy taxes levied by the KMT government, had forced most families into poverty. Losing their land to major landlords, a growing number of peasants could not afford to marry, while many existing families were unable to support even decent childbirth or funeral expenses. As a result, a few wealthy landlords became the "patriarchs" of the peasant communities and dominated life in the rural areas of China.67 Mao's third principle of success was largely a response to these deteriorating family and social conditions in the Chinese countryside. Through a program of land reform, he sought to restore the identity function of the traditional family by allowing each male to become the patriarch of his family household.68 AH landholdings were evaluated and redistributed on a more equal basis determined by classifications that provided every individual his status as a rich, middle, or landless laborer.69 Through land reform, Mao's aspirational message was a simple one—the people could make a better future for themselves if they would only organize into a new unity and reestablish the traditional family structure—what Mao called the "New Democratic Patriarchy."70 To the people of Morelos and the surrounding Indian-dominated regions, the loss of communal lands and whole villages represented the loss of their identity.71 In response, the Zapatistas sought to establish a new and ideal Indian agrarian state that, they believed, would restore this identity.72 The establishment of the Consultation Center for Revolutionary Propaganda by the Zapatistas in 1916, for example, was largely to "give the pueblos their bearings again"73 by working to solve the social problems of the commune. An anxious and confused generation, young Iranian intellectuals of the 1970s were in search of an ideology that could reconcile traditional Shi'ism with the modern world, one that would explain an emerging new culture in the context of their traditional religious values. While these young Iranians' attachment to Shi'a doctrines was too powerful to discard, largely because they served as the foundation of their identity, nonetheless the young intellectuals found a powerful ideology in the writings of Shariati who created an Islamic concept for revolution that was, they perceived, well suited for "the modern world."74 "His Islam was typically modern in its therapeutic rationality, in its attempt to use faith for collective therapy."75 Shariati was convinced that Iranians possessed an intellectual responsibility to both themselves and their society. One of his most compelling arguments centered around the notion that they could no longer hide behind the theological facade of religion. "All we have done is to moan and lament plentifully, and I am convinced that lamenting in pain must be abandoned. Instead we must speak concerning our sufferings, out of a sense of suffering, but also 'scientifically.' "76 He believed that the Iranian masses had to rediscover true Islam and reject the failed practices of the past. In this sense he saw an Islamic revolution as a purifying event—in an important way, he believed, much like the Maoists in China, that a new Islamic man was to be created. In this sense, Shariati was searching for a new Iranian national identity and the reconstruction of the Iranian concept of self.

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THE CATHARTIC FUNCTION OF MILLENARIANISM Millenarianism performed a cathartic function in the revolutionary upheavals of China, Mexico, and Iran by providing the basis for society's psychological need to, first, clarify the society's problems, and then purge, cleanse, and purify the people of iniquity and the domination of foreign corruption. In strictly psychological terms, the process of catharsis involves "alleviating fears, problems, and complexes by bringing them to consciousness and giving them expression." It is a therapeutic process that discharges repressed emotions and, in turn, results in a decrease of stress and tension and the clarification of thought. In short, catharsis represents a freeing from and purification of experiences of guilt, sin, and defilement.77 For example, the millenarian quality of the early Christian community exhibited a profound capacity for social catharsis. The apocalyptic character of the Book of Revelation was a response to the catastrophic events that were occurring at the time of its writing. The terrorizing, persecution, and domination of the early Christians by the Roman government created conditions of extreme social stress, fear, and dissonance. The author of Revelation sought to provide the faithful with a form of moral and spiritual relief from these experiences through the use of effective symbols that clearly defined good and evil and provided a vision of hope through the promise of social salvation that would manifest in a perfect world of justice, harmony, and happiness in God's kingdom yet to come. "The projection of their current problems onto a broader, supernatural screen was cathartic in the sense that it clarified and objectified the conflict." Their feelings of fear and dissonance were vented and made manifest by the very act of expressing them, especially in a larger-than-life and exaggerated way.78 The apocalypse, as it was characterized by the powerful imagery and symbolism of Revelation, was as evocative as it was expressive; it not only displayed attitudes and feelings, it also elicited them. In this way, it exhibited a capacity for collective catharsis and the initiation of the process of social healing. Millenarianism serves to regulate "emotional distancing" (the extent to which an individual becomes an observer of his or her own emotions). Under ideal conditions of social catharsis, collective millenarian beliefs and practices may serve an important function by distancing an audience, by allowing its members to be both participants in and observers of distressful emotion.79 The vision of a heavenly or Utopian reality and of a radical new future free from the problems of the present world functions as a form of compensation for the stressful and somewhat disadvantaged situation of the audience and as an imaginative way of resolving the tension between their expectations and social reality. Psychologists have long realized that the individual is capable of dealing with inner tension through the development of a projective system, one that unconsciously attributes to others those motives within oneself that he finds unacceptable.80 A significant change in one's attitude and commitment to that attitude may come about as the result of the reduction of one's fears by projecting them onto


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another representation that stirs up an equal degree of aggression.81 Political leaders have often achieved significant attitude changes within a society by arousing the emotions of its citizenry through the targeting of a convenient enemy who is to blame for current social problems or a specific tragic event. Adolf Hitler, as merely one example, was a master of this device.82 Another effective means of controlling inner stresses is through collectively held and socially reinforced sacred beliefs. "Social projections shared collectively within a group permit some form of psychic balance to be maintained without any overt social malfunctioning, Under ordinary conditions overt conflict does not appear. However, when stress becomes unmanageable, some overt form of violence may erupt."83 Thus, while the role of millenarian beliefs is to resolve stress and tension aroused by a social crisis by providing a feeling of detachment and greater control to the ihdividual, it is limited in its capability to restrict violence. Under conditions of extreme and prolonged social stress, the violent imagery usually associated with the end time may provoke collective action that manifests itself in social violence. In this sense millenarian beliefs function as both a catharsis and a catalyst for action. An important element of the cathartic function of millenarianism is the perceived need for social and individual cleansing. Indeed, among millenarians, social salvation is believed to be imminent in the presence of social disaster. Collective suffering acts as a form of group cleansing that detaches society from the old world and prepares the way for the new. Only those who are willing to submit to such a process may be included among God's "chosen elect." For example, it was widely believed by both early Christians and adherents of medieval millenarian movements that just as Jesus Christ had suffered on the cross, and in such a way purged and cleansed himself of the temporal world, they also must purge themselves of their earthly ways and prepare themselves for imminent salvation.84 The cathartic potential of millenarianism goes to the core of the true function of salvationism and ritual in the life of an individual and in the collective life of a society. As Durkheim has argued, it is perhaps a mistake to attempt to explain religion in rational terms as merely "a system of ideas, corresponding to some determined object." Rather, it must be explained through the eyes of the true believers; those who have "a direct sensation of what it really is." The true believers feel that the real function of religion is not to make us think, to enrich our knowledge, nor to add to the conceptions which we owe to science... but rather, it is to make us act, to aid us to live The believer... feels within him more force, either to endure the trials of existence, or to conquer them. It is as though he were raised above the miseries of the world, because he is raised above his condition as a mere man; he believes that he is saved from evil;... it is the cult which gives rise to these impressions of joy, of interior peace, of serenity, of enthusiasm which are, for the believer, an experimental proof of his beliefs. Whether it consist in materia acts or mental operations, it is always this which is efficacious.85

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The cathartic power of salvationism andritualthus lies in its capacity to raise one's level of consciousness, to see oneself above the catastrophe and stress of the temporal world, and to perceive that one is capable not only of enduring such problems, but more important of conquering them. The ability to perceive of a perfect world saved from its current problems enhances one's sensitivity to the imperfect. This leads to the uncovering of conflicts and hidden tensions, which can have either very beneficial or catastrophic results. However, if the goal is perfection, in the mind of the believer, even catastrophe or violent revolution is not too high a price.86 In the Shi'a Moslem community, the concept of the Imamate performs a similar functional role. To a devout Shi'ite, it is the return of the Imam that has the power to restore the "purity of the faith" in the face of oppression, disorientation, and perceived corruption. "The chiliastic vision of history in Shi'ism continues to be expressed, even today, in terms of radical social protest in the face of political oppression. Had it not been this deep sense of paving the way for the reappearance of the Imam, the Shi'ites would not have felt the need to re-evaluate their social circumstances and the shortcomings of their present lives."87 In China, Mexico, and Iran, revolutionary millenarian movements sought first, to raise the consciousness of society in an attempt to look beyond immediate problems, and second, to purge and cleanse their world of foreign and alien forces that they perceived as evil and accountable for social crisis. In China, the CCP served as a form of thought-reform movement in which an individual was first investigated and "then persuaded to describe himself and his life experience to the point where [investigators] could begin to criticize him."88 Such a mental "cleansing" process was seen to be necessary for one to be completely and fully accepted into the fold of the revolutionary movement. "Behind the Chinese spirit of rebellion and revolution was a quest for purity and a higher morality, for the decadent old order was judged weak and contemptible."89 Mao preached a form of self-liberation to the peasants as rural areas came under the control of the communists in the 1930s and 1940s. He encouraged the peasants to confront their former landlords (a symbol of their oppressors) and to rebuke them verbally for past humiliations and miseries. In this way, the consciousness of the oppressed was cleansed and renewed.90 "If you are not completely reborn," Mao proclaimed, "you cannot enter the door of communism."91 During the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guard movement among Chinese youth placed great emphasis on their purity; only those who possessed certain kinds of class and family backgrounds were permitted to join. The targets of the Red Guards, in contrast, were those associated with impurity, designated the "five black" categories: "landlords, rich peasants, counter revolutionaries, 'bad elements' and rightists."92 To inaugurate the Red Guard movement, Mao staged a massive rally in Beijing. In his speech to the youthful Red Guards, he spoke of the creation of a new Chines community. Such a community, Robert Lifton suggests, was, "in a symbolic sense


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a community of immortals, of men, women, and children entering into a new relationship with the eternal revolutionary process."93 Those "courageous and daring pathbreakers," as Mao designated the Red Guards, travelled throughout rural and urban China in a religiouslike crusade against the "five black" categories, carrying copies of "the little red book," which seemingly possessed semimagical powers, and issued manifestoes proclaiming that "supernatural powers" were to issue from "Mao Tse-tung's great invincible thought."94 Often during the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards in individual communities would lead huge crowds in a march to a particular site—the local CCP headquarters, for example—and demand the presence of "guilty" officials, who would then be subjected to public criticism and humiliation for their past actions. The charges against these officials ranged from "self-enrichment" to acting in "elitist" and "undemocratic" ways.95 In Indian Mexico, the Virgin of Guadalupe stood as a symbol of the promise of an independent Mexico, purified and cleansed of the "irrational authority of the Spanish father-oppressors and restored to the [status of a] Chosen nation."96 The symbol of the Virgin stood as the vanguard of the Zapatista movement and cause. Through their efforts, Zapatistas believed, her lands would be under the control of her rightful and legitimate heirs. Antonio Diaz Soto y Gama, in the months just before the establishment of the Morelos commune, sought to purge the Zapatista camp of all moderates; those who appeared to be "soft" on the idea of achieving a true revolution, and might be suspected of "counter-revolutionary tendencies."97 In Iran, throughout late 1979 and 1980, a kind of "reign of terror" characterized the Islamic Republic, as the clerics sought to purge Iranian society of the remnants of Westernization. The cultural life of Iranian society not only reflected profound anti-Western sentiment, but also praised the power of Shi'a Islam and its revelations, power that made it possible for the common people to "rediscover their self-esteem and wholeness, and be inviolate."98 Revolutionary tribunals, or Shari'a courts established by Khomeini, outside the Iranian judicial system, sought to cleanse Western contamination and reestablish the complete authority of Twelver Shi'ism over all aspects of Iranian life. In the first months immediately following the Islamic Party's takeover of the government, these courts were responsible for the conviction and execution of hundreds of "drug-addicts, prostitutes, homosexuals, rapists and adulterers, on the charge of sowing corruption on earth."99 During the February 1980 elections for the Majles (parliament), the Revolutionary Council, believing that Iranian universities were "hot-beds" of counterrevolution, ordered them temporarily shut down for the purpose of undergoing a "cultural revolution" (Enqelab-e Farhangi). This action eliminated, "in one fell swoop," the secular political stronghold in Iran, just as it was intended to do. Indeed, anyone who did not agree with the Islamic Republican Party's version of government policy was branded anti-Islamic and subject to imprisonment.100

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At the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War in 1980, special courts known as "Cleansing Komitehs" were established to purge the armed forces in an attempt to achieve "ideological purity" among the country's defenders.101 It is common for revolutionary movements to consolidate their power by expelling those elements of the previous ruling regime and their supporters. Yet the pervasiveness and uniquely spiritual form of these efforts in the Chinese, Mexican, and Iranian cases exhibited a distinctive, religiouslike quality representing an effort to achieve true social catharsis rather than simply an expulsion of old enemies. The suffering, disorientation, dislocation, and social stress engendered by foreign imperialism and domination created conditions in all three of these cases that required a collective form of therapy, a mass cure for the problems encountered by these societies. Millenarianism functioned as a mitigating factor in the capacity of the peoples of these societies (1) to cope with the disastrous consequences of Western imperialism by projecting their problems onto a broader screen that helped to clarify and objectify their social problems, (2) to reestablish their collective identity, and (3) to thoroughly purge and cleanse themselves of the burden of their humiliations, frustrations, indignation, and personal guilt in an effective act of mass catharsis. NOTES 1. Bruce Lincoln, ed., Religion, Rebellion, Revolution (New York: St. Martin's Pre 1985), 275; see also Adas, 187. 2. Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, 59. 3. John A. Honigmann, "Culture Patterns and Human Stress: A Study in Social Psychiatry," Psychiatry 13 (1950): 31. 4. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 229. 5. Ibid., 247. 6. Mao Tse-tung, "Provisional Marriage Regulations," decrees of the First Session of the Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic, January 28, 1931, in Schram, 228-29. 7. Chesneaux, Peasant Revolt in China, 113. 8. Eisenstadt, 230. 9. Mao Tse-tung, "The Function of Dictatorship in the Transformation of Society," Selected Works, 4,418-19. 10. Meisner, 120-21. The use of the term "ascetic" here intentionally takes on a religiou like character. "Ascetic values, however, are rarely ends unto themselves, but rather are usually seen as means to serve higher interests and attain ultimate goals, as such goals may be defined in a comprehensive, religious, or political ideology." Meisner compares Mao's ascetic values to those of the Calvinist saints, who "understood as an ethical obligation to serve the glory of God, for, according to Calvinist ideology, a transcendental and inscrutable God had decreed that it was the duty of all men to labor to establish the Kingdom of God on earth." Cf. Michael Waltzer, The Revolution ofthe Saints (Cambridge: Harvard Univer Press, 1965). 11. Meisner, 120-21.


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12. Cf. David Bachman, Bureaucracy, Economy, and Leadership in China: The Institutional Origins of the Great Leap Forward (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). For an excellent account of the Cultural revolution by a Red Guard participant, see Gao Yuan. 13. Meisner, 163. 14. Gao Yuan asserts that as a young boy during the Great Leap Forward "Chairman Mao's dream of entering the industrial age overnight was personified by a man astride a rocket, the man I saw in billboards captioned, 'Surpass England in Fifteen Years!'...People were saying that true communism was just around the comer." See Gao Yuan, 6-7. 15. Meisner, 163. See also Fairbank, China: A New History, 373. 16. Bauer, 404. 17. Mao Tse-tung, "Hung Ch'i (Red Flag)," June 1,1958, in Schram, 252-53. 18. Bauer, 405-6. Such a spiritual transformation was not a new concept in China. Indeed, it exhibited a striking parallel to the heterodox Buddhist concept of "emptiness." This concept held that in order to achieve true salvation the old person must be completely destroyed and that one can accomplish this more easily the closer one comes to a personal state of "blankness," Bauer asserts that the concept of blankness also constitutes a remarkab parallel to the transformation of Buddhism in China. In contrast to the earlier Hinayana Buddhism ("Lesser Vehicle"), its Mayahana version ("Greater Vehicle") had proclaimed th paradise (Nirvana) was open to anyone at anytime. 19. Meisner, 168. 20. Robert Jay Lifton, Boundaries: Psychological Man in Revolution (New York: Random House, 1969), 72-73. 21. Robert Jay Lifton, Revolutionary Immortality: Mao Tse-tung and the Chines Cultural Revolution (New York: Random House, 1968), 31-32. 22. Meisner, 168. 23. Gao Yuan, 120. 24. Meisner, 168-69. 25. In the description of his first glimpse of Mao during ceremonies surrounding the founding of the People's Republic of China in October 1949, Dr. Li Zhisui, perhaps expressing the sentiments of thousands of Chinese observing the day's events, asserts, "Ma Zedong and the other top leaders appeared on the podium overlooking the square. The effe was electric. Mao had been my hero since my brother first told me he was China's messiah, and this was my first glimpse of my savior... [his] voice was soft, almost lilting, and the effect of his speech wasriveting.'The Chinese people have stood up,' he proclaimed, and the crowd went wild, thundering in applause, shouting over and over 'Long live the People's Republic of China!' "Long live the Chinese Communist Party!' I was so full of joy my heart nearly burst out of my throat, and tears welled up in my eyes. I was so proud of China, so full of hope, so happy that the exploitation and suffering, the aggression from foreigners, would be gone forever. I had no doubt that Mao was the great leader of the revolution, the maker of new Chinese history." See Li Zhisui, 51-52. 26. Creel, 3-4. 27. Mao Tse-tung, "The Chinese People Has Stood Up," speech given before the First Plenary Session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, September 21, 1949, in idem, On People's Democratic Dictatorship (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1951), 39-45. 28. Jenner, 38-63. 29. Ibid., 44. 30. McNeely, 166.

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31. Womack, 405. For a complete text of both the "Plan of Ayala" and the "Agrarian Law" see ibid., 394-411. 32. Gilly, 241. 33. Ibid., 241. 34. Ibid., 264-65. 35. Womack, 276-77. 36. Ibid., 277. 37. Quoted in ibid., 277. 38. Quoted in Gilly, 277. 39. Sachedina, 181. 40. Keddie, "Shi'ism and Revolution," 174. See also Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin, 110. 41. Keddie, "Shi'ism and Revolution," 217. 42.Bashiriyeh,71. 43. Ali Shariati, On the Sociology of Islam, translated by Hamid Algar (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1980), 93. 44. Ibid., 119-20. 45. Bashiriyeh, 6. 46. Shariati, 124. 47. Shahrough Akhavi and Hamid Dabashi, "Ali Shari'ati," in Expectation of the Millennium: Shi'ism in History, ed. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Hamid Dabashi, and Seyyed Vali Reza Nasr (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 377. 48. Keddie, Roots of Revolution, 215. 49. Ibid., 387. 50. Khomeini, 40. 51. Ibid., 44. 52. Ibid., 45,90. 53. Ibid., 53. 54. Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin, 44. 55. V. S. Naipaul, Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey (New York: Vintage Book 1982), 28-30. He quotes a conversation with a Shi'a Muslim from Bombay, India whom he met on a street comer in Tehran in the period just following Khomeini's return. " 'What a nice thing it is now/ the man from Bombay said, 'to see the mle of Ali! Getting women back into the veil, getting them off television. No alcohol'" (29). 56. Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin, 44-45. 57. Ibid., 37-38. Religious clerics "also set up armed volunteers, who later became famous as the revolutionary pasdars, to preserve some semblance of law and order and to replace the police force that had ceased to function. And, most important of all, they set up komitehs (committees) to co-ordinate local demonstrations, strike committees, food co-operatives, Shari'a courts, and the pasdars; these komitehs, with the help of important bazaaris, soon ran most of the large towns." See also Naipaul, 33-34. 58. S. Epstein, "The Self-concept: A Review and the Proposal of an Integrated Theory of Personality," in Personality: Basic Aspects and Current Research, ed. Ervin Staub (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1980), 233. 59. R. Janoff-Bulman, 'The Aftermath of Victimization: Rebuilding Shattered Assumptions," in Trauma and Its Wake, ed. C. R. Figley (New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1985). 60. Ibid., 24. 61. Lewy, 251.


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62. Ibid., 251. 63. Robert Weiss, "The Provisions of Social Relationships," in Doing unto Others, ed Z. Rubin (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1974). 64. Barkun, Disaster and the Millennium, 19. 65. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 246. 66. Ibid., 246. 67. Judith Stacey,"Peasant Families and People's War in the Chinese Revolution," in Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative and Historical Studies, 182-9 68. Ibid., 182-94. 69. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 247. 70. Ibid., 247. 71. Womack, 44. See also Pena, 66-68. 72. Womack, 193. 73. Ibid., 275. 74. Akhavi and Dabashi, 382. 75. Ibid., 382. 76. Quoted in Akhavi and Dabashi, 378. 77. David O. Sears, Jonathan L. Freedman, and L. Anne Peplau, Social Psychology 5th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1985), 283; see also Thomas J. Scheff, Catharsis in Healing, Ritual, and Drama (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 3-25. 78. Adela Yarbro Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philade phia: Westminster Press, 1984), 153. 79. Scheff, 137. 80. R. R. Sears, "Experimental Studies of Projection. I, Attribution of Traits," Journal o Social Psychology 1 (1936): 151-63. Projection, like all other human mechanisms of psychological defense, may occur in "normal" individuals. 81. W. Weiss and B. J. Fine, "The Effect of Induced Aggressiveness on Opinion Change Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 52 (1956), 109-14. 82. Two examples readily come to mind. First, Hitler's blaming, and subsequent persecution, of the Jewish people for the social and economic problems that beset Germany in th 1920s and 1930s. And second, the blaming of the communists for the Reichstag fire in 1933 that set the stage for the Nazi dictatorship. 83. George De Vos, "Conflict, Dominance, and Exploitation," in Sanctions for Evil, ed. Nevitt Sanford and Craig Comstock (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1971), 171. 84. Cohn, Revolutionary Millenarians, 236. 85. Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, 463-64. 86. Cf. Paul Watzlawicki, "The Pathologies of Perfectionism " Et cetera 34 (1977): 12. 87. Sachedina, 182. 88. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 255. 89. Pye, 121. For a comprehensive look at the CCP as a thought-reform movement, see Robert Jay Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology ofTotalism: A Study of "Brainwash ing" in China (New York: Norton, 1963). 90. Chesneaux, Peasant Revolts in China, 141-44. 91. Quoted in Meisner, 198. 92. Lifton, Boundaries, 76-77,79. 93. Ibid., 77. "An event of this kind is meant to convey a blending of the immortal cultur and racial substance of the Chinese as a people with the equally immortal Communist revolution."

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94. Ibid., 167. 95. Marc Blecher, China: Politics, Economics, and Society (London: Pinter, 1986), 82-85. 96. Wolf, "The Virgin of Guadalupe," 38. 97. Cockcroft, 229. 98. Naipaul, 14-15. He is referring specifically to the novel Foreigner, by the Iranian authoress Nahid Rachlin, published in America in 1978 while the Shah was still in power. The powerful story "avoids political comment. Its protest is more oblique; the political constriction drives the passion deeper, and the novel, with all its air of innocence, is a novel of violation, helplessness, and defeat." 99. Abrahamian, The Iranian Mojahedin, 53. 100. Ibid., 45. 101. Ibid., 63.

Conclusion

his study represents a cross-cultural, cross:historical analysis of threeE Tnon-Western revolutionary societies that were profoundly impinged upon

by European and American imperialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The revolutionary experiences in China, Mexico, and Iran were not identical, and in many ways their variations are noteworthy. For example, in only two of the cases—China and Iran—were the revolutionary millenarian movements successful, as defined by their accession to power and afforded the opportunity to implement their revolutionary programs. In the Mexican case, the social revolution sought by the Zapatista movement became an aborted one largely because of the assassination of Emiliano Zapata in 1919 and the successful co-optation of many of his former generals and ideologues by President Obregon in the 1920s. The length and severity of these revolutions varied significantly. The actual transfer of power in Iran occurred over a relatively short period of time during the fall and winter of 1978-1979, and was much less bloody than the other cases. The Chinese and Mexican experiences were protracted upheavals lasting many years and resulted in the death of tens of thousands of people. Finally, the primary impetus for the Chinese and Mexican Indian cases came from the rural peasant regions and eventually spread to the cities. In contrast, the Iranian Revolution was strictly an urban event in which the rural areas played little or no part. This diversity dispels the common notion that millenarianism is a uniquely peasant-driven phenomenon.

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WESTERN IMPERIALISM, SOCIAL STRESS, AND REVOLUTIONARY MILLENARIANISM In all three of these societies, the forces of Western imperialism, unleashed in the nineteenth century and sustained over a lengthy period, created conditions of severe social stress by significantly disrupting the fundamental elements of their social, political, and economic systems. This social stress was manifested in widespread frustration, disorientation, anomie, bitterness, and humiliation, and ultimately provoked a sense of moral outrage and indignation among the peoples of these societies. Cultural imperialism and foreign economic control were destructive of the well-being and, from their perspective, the potential cultural and political survival of these deeply ethnocentric peoples. China, Mexico, and Iran were each ruled by powerfully repressive regimes, the structure of which had become rigidly bureaucratic and corrupted over many years of political control. In each case these regimes were maintained by massive support from foreign sources. Indeed, both Porfirio Diaz and Mohammed Reza Shah were viewed largely (and quite accurately) as puppets of the United States. In China, the KMT received important aid from the Western powers in its civil war with the communists. Each of these regimes was perceived by large segments of the population as violating and corrupting well-entrenched social mores and symbols of sacred values. In Iran, for example, the "Westernization" of cultural and social norms— fashion, literature, gender roles, the emphasis on material goods—was seen as laying the groundwork for the increasing assimilation of Iran into the Western sphere of influence. In Mexico, the government of Diaz and his associates at the state level had "snapped the few remaining threads of civic forbearance" among Mexican Indian peasants.1 Millenarianism was at the core of these three revolutionary cases. A pervasive and durable tradition of religious-inspired chiliastic beliefs could trace its origin to the ancient era in each society. This messianic tradition had manifested itself in the form of radical protest movements bent on rebellion, which tended to emerge following episodes of extreme social stress or conditions that had a catastrophic effect on some or all segments of society. Such movements believed that social salvation was imminent and would result from the return of a divine deliverer or messiah. As a result, they were vague, naive, and boundless in scope. Their goal was to return society to the bliss and harmony of a perceived previous "Golden Age." Beginning in the nineteenth century, a distinctly different form of revolutionary millenarianism began to appear in all three societies. This form of millenarianism (1) articulated a clear program of solutions for the problems of these societies, (2) focused on the future rather than the past, and (3) placed responsibility for the achievement of a Utopian paradise on earth in the hands of man rather than in the return of a supernatural, transcendental messiah. Nonetheless, such movements

Conclusion

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retained much of the apocalyptic imagery identified with ancient messianic practices. Symbols, in the form of slogans, rites, and religious festivals, were important to all three of these societies and were used to promote cultural unity as well as to justify violent rebellion against the perceived corruption of social values. Such symbols promoted cohesion among potential rebels and, as George Rude* has argued about other societies, served to unify protest groups and direct their energies toward precise targets and objectives.2 Each of these societies possessed a myriad of what Emile Durkheim has called collective representations—sacred symbols possessing profound social implications and expressing cultural identity and sacredly held values, symbols that a society comes to perceive as hallowed or possessing a "spirit." Collective representations act like powerful social magnets that "attract and hold the sentiments of the entire community;... they are the focal point of communal beliefs, feelings, sentiments, concerns, fears, and so forth."3 Durkheim believed that it was the collective representations of a society and their associated rites and observances, as the expression of social ideals and values, that were important to sustaining millenarian beliefs within a society: The ideal tends to become one with the real: that is why men believe that the time is near when it will become reality itself and when the Kingdom of God will be realised on this earth. But the illusion is never lasting because this exaltation can never last: it is too exhausting.... [S]o all that was done . . . during the period of fertile upheaval only survives in the form of ideals [and] certainly these ideals would quickly be vitiated if they were not periodically revived;... that is the purpose of festivals, ceremonies... of church, or of school— [TJhey are like partial and weakened revivals of the effervescence of creative eras.4 Large segments of the population in each of these societies came to perceive that sacrosanct collective representations had been violated or corrupted by forces viewed as alien. For example, there was widespread concern that the institution of the family in China was disintegrating; physical resources, such as communally held lands and villages in Mexico, symbolized by ancient land titles, were being taken away; and the sacred Shi'a culture and the Shari'a were being increasingly subordinated, perverted and contaminated by "Westoxification" in Iran.5 In all three cases a cult emerged around a charismatic figure who came to symbolize the goals and aspirations of society and the need for social transformation and revitalization. This cult figure became the leader of a revolutionary movement and enjoyed a tremendous amount of prestige and distinction among the masses. Indeed, each was perceived by many to possess superhuman, divinely ordained powers to lead society to salvation through revolution. The cult surrounding revolutionary leadership emerged out of the specific needs and concerns of society. Its legitimacy was grounded in the pervasive millenarian beliefs and yearnings of the people themselves. Each of these societies seems to

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have possessed a collective "chronic frustration and anxiety" over social and economic transformation, in the face of abrupt modernization. The reaction of the populace seems to have been one of moral outrage and righteous indignation, not unlike that which had occurred among millenarian movements in medieval Wester Europe. Such outrage, if not sufficiently repressed by a highly authoritarian regime, can become violent and threaten political and social stability. In all three of these societies, the highly repressive regimes that had ruled over a long period were deteriorating. The rulers themselves were old, infirm, or dying. In addition, each regime was largely insensitive to the needs and desires of the general populace, focusing instead on improving the lot of a somewhat small socioeconomic elite. Further, the morale of these regimes had been sapped by continuing dissident opposition and frequent outbursts of violent protest and rebellion. Although all three governments attempted to carry out limited reforms, these efforts were too late to save their crippled situation. In all three cases, these regimes collapsed under the weight of growing opposition and collective moral outrage and indignation. In China, Mexico, and Iran the overthrow of the ancien regime was followed by the assumption of political power by a moderate government: Sun Yat-sen and the Republican movement, the Presidency of Francisco Madero, and the Bazargan Government in Iran. Nonetheless, in all three cases extremists from both the Left and the Right immediately began to attack the new leadership. In China, this resulted in a weak central government that was incapable of consolidating its powe on a national scale, a condition that plagued the KMT until its collapse in 1949. I Mexico, the equally weak and inconsistent government of the Maderistas was overthrown after less than two years by counterrevolutionary forces from the extreme Right. In all three cases a situation of "dual sovereignty"6 existed for some period. Indeed, in Mexico, what could be described as "multisovereignty" (many identifiable factions vying for political power) existed for nearly a decade and contributed to a protracted period of violence and anarchy. In the Chinese and Iranian cases, dual sovereignty was ended with the rise of extremists—the Maoists and the Islamic Republican Party—who imposed a dictatorship similar in concept to Crane Brinton's "centralized executive committee." Nonetheless, in both cases a cult surrounding one individual dominated the government. To an important degree terror was institutionalized after some period of time, and included both the persecution of all opposition and a social revolution that transformed society. The extremists, in both cases, took special care to achiev a social catharsis: they sought to destroy "everything of the contaminated past."7 In each of these revolutionary cases, millenarianism performed significant functions in three ways—as preparation in the prerevolutionary period, as a platform for revolutionary leadership, and as a therapeutic agent throughout the revolutionary process. Religious-inspired millenarian rebellion had become a common form of politica expression, particularly among the lower classes in these societies. In the midnine

Conclusion

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teenth century'this traditional process, much like it had earlier in West, underwent a meaningful transformation. Revolutionary millenarianism became a somewhat more clearly defined, better organized program of social solutions that promoted the idea of progress as human induced, not God induced. In this way, millenarianis laid the groundwork and prepared the way for revolutionary transformation in all three of these societies in the twentieth century. In all three cases, millenarianism acted as a catalyst for action among that grou of the most ardent revolutionists who were willing to pay any price to achieve wha they were convinced was the inevitable goal of a transformed and Utopian society. The existence of pervasive millenarian beliefs created the potential for prophetic and charismatic revolutionary leadership in all three cases. Such leadership emerged out of the conditions of social stress and crisis created by the impact of Western imperialism, which evoked anxiety and disorientation among the peoples of these societies. In this way millenarianism functioned as a doctrinal platform that awaited the opportunity to elevate a prophetic leader to a position of control, leader who could effectively tap into the relevant myths of these cultures and articulate a program of revitalization. Millenarianism performed a curative function in these revolutions by providing both the doctrinal foundation and an effective organization for a social healing process to take place. Healing was necessary following the experience of cultural and economic catastrophe. Millenarianism played a significant identity function in these three revolutions. Traditional mechanisms for the voicing of individual and collective complaints and grievances had either broken down completely or were disintegrating in these societies. The ability of individuals to identify clearly their functional role in society and sustain their self-concept had been shattered. The imminent possibility of social salvation, which would seemingly reestablish the identity and self-esteem of the individual, marshalled a common rallying point for social recovery and revitalization. Millenarianism functioned as a mobilizing agent in these societies by providing a framework for broader-based social cohesiveness beyond the kinship, tribal, and village level. It represented a common rallying point around which organization and mobilization of these groupings would take place and thus represented the foundational conditions that made these groups ready to effect revolutionary change. Finally, millenarianism performed a cathartic function in the revolutionary upheaval of China, Mexico, and Iran by providing the basis for society's psychological need to clarify, purge, cleanse, and purify itself of iniquity, guilt, and the residuals of foreign domination and corruption. Mass religion was an integral component of the traditional popular culture in all three of these societies. Religion was an important part of the collective consciousness (political and cultural) that had traditionally assisted the peoples of these societies in determining the appropriate response and reaction to frequently occurring and potentially malevolent social crises (economic emergency, social strains,

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political upheavals, and historical transformations) for generations. Faced with Western imperialism, which may have created the most serious challenge ever faced by these societies, mass religion was again called upon as an aid in defining an appropriate response to the sociopolitical and economic crisis this intrusion engendered. The people of these three societies did not go out and willingly risk their lives in a violent revolution simply because the price of bread had gone up a few percentage points. Rather, they mobilized because their "sense of right and wrong, justice and injustice, legitimacy and illegitimacy—in short their moral economy— had been flagrantly violated"8 by forces that were both superior and alien. Such feelings induced a profound collective indignation that led to political violence and, ultimately, revolution. In this process, these people perceived their present political leadership as both agents and accomplices of alien influence. Stripped of their identity to an important extent and faced with the possibility of the complete destruction of their way of life, the people of these societies drew upon their powerful and pervasive chiliastic beliefs, shaped and transmuted them into a form that would suit the exigencies of modern circumstances, and began the process of resurrecting, revitalizing, and renewing their societies. In each case this process required a violent revolution to achieve such goals. NOTES 1. Womack, 37. The specific reference here is to local anger over the administration of Pablo Escandon, the governor of Morelos at the onset of the Mexican Revolution. 2. Rude\ 245. 3. R. P. Cuzzort, Using Social Thought (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1989), 29-30. 4. Emile Durkheim, Sociology and Philosophy, translated from the French by D. F Pocock (New York: Free Press, 1974), 126. 5. The term "Westoxification" is a translation of the Farsi word gharbzadegi,v/hich wa first used by Jalal Al-e Ahmad. It is mentioned in Michael C. Hillmann, "Introduction," in Jalal Al-e Ahmad, The School Principal, translated by John K. Newton (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1974). See also Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War? Religiou Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993 19. 6. Brinton, 133. 7. Ibid., 174. 8. E. P. Thompson, "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century," Past and Present, 50 (February 1971): 79-80.

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Index

Abrahamian, Ervand, 9 Africa, 32-33,42,60-70 Agrarian Law (Zapatistas'), 156,158 Alexander the Great, 18 Ali (Son-in-Law of Mohammed), 92 Amezcua, General Jenaro, 158 Anabaptists, 22 Anahuac, 81,89-90 Anarchism, 29,30,64 Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), 5354 Antichrist, 20 Anti-Clerical Laws of 1828-1829,51 Antiochus IV Epiphanes, 19 Arjomand, Said Amir, 56 Asia, 33,42 Assembly of Experts, 142 Associations for the Defense of Revolutionary Principles, 157 Augustine, Saint, 22,82 Ayala, Plan of, 130,132,156,158 Azalis, 100 Aztecs, 4,18,80-82,90 Babi Movement, 30,95-101 Bakhtiyar, Shahpour, 140-41 Band of Right and Harmony (Boxers), 80 Barkun, Michael, 32

Bayan, 98,99 Bazargan, Mehdi, 141-42,176 Ben Bella, Ahmed, 158 Black Spears, 122-23 Blanquists, 30 Bonilla, Enrique, 157 Boxers, 51, 70, 79, 121; Rebellion of, 79 Brinton, Crane, 2, 176 Britain, 5,44,48-51; and the AIOC, 51; criticized by Khomeini, 137; and the overthrow of Mussidiq government, 52 British Intelligence, 5 Browne, E.G., 97 Buddhism, 11,69,74-76,121 Cabildo system, 42-43 Carranza, Venustiano, 133,135 Carter, Jimmy, 10,140 Central Intelligence Agency, United States, 5,54 Chang Chueh, 68 Chavez Lopez, Julio, Revolt of, 90-91; compared to Taipings and Babis, 100 Chiang Kai-shek, 10,123-24,127 Chiapas, State of, 51,52, 86-87,90,92 Chihli Province, 80 Chihuahua, State of, 50,53

192

Index

Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 4,6,70, 70-71,78-79,127-28,152-53,166; and mobilization of secret societies, 122; as a thought-reform movement, 166 Christ, Jesus, 2,24,33,71, 72,77,166 Christianity, 11,23-24,31,33,64,72,74, 78,79,164; in New Spain, 81-84 Cientificos, 45 City of God, The, 82 Cohn, Norman, 11,30 Communism, 18,23,29, 65 Communist International (Comintern), 122 Condorcet, 24-25 Confucianism, 46,51,67-70,72,74-76, 78,100-102,125 Consultative Center for Revolutionary Propagada and Unification, 163 Cortes, Hernan, 18,81-83 Council of Guardians, 140 Cuscat Rebellion (War of St. Rose), 91 Daniel, Book of, 17,18 Deng Xiaoping, 126 Diaz, Porfirio, 5,50,51,128-29,131, 133,174 Diego, Juan, 83-84 Diggers, The, 23 Durango, State of, 50,89 Durkheim, Emile, 165-66,175-76 Eight Trigrams, 71; Revolt of, 72 Engels, Friedrich, 23 Fascism, 18 Fatima (Daughter of Mohammed), 92 Feda'iyan-e Islam, 53 Feuerbach, Ludwig, 25,27 Fifth Monarchy Men, 23 Five Bushels of Rice Rebellion, 68 Fontenelle, 23-24 Fourier, Charles, 25,91 France, 44,50,52 Freemasons, 30 French Revolution, 23,65 Gachupines, 89-90 Germany, 42,48,50,79,122 Ghost Dance religion, 92

Golden Age, 8,22-23,24 100,102,174 Goldfrank, Walter, 9 Goldstone, Jack, 9 Gordon, General Charles "Chinese," 76 Great Knife, The, 70 Great Leap Forward, The, 153-54 Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, The, 153-54,166 Greek Empire, 18-19 Gruzinski, Serge, 133 Guerrero, State of, 157 Hakka, 74 Hamberg, Theodore, 73 Han Dynasty, 68 Hasayn (Grandson of Mohammed), 92-93 Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace (Taiping State), 74 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 25-27 Herrada, Jose Bernardo, 89 Hidalgo, State of, 50,90 Hidalgo y Costilla, Father Miguel, 89, 102,131 Hidden Imam. See Twelfth Imam Hobsbawm, Eric, 30,66 House of the World Worker (La Casa del Obrero Mundial), 130 Huai-pei Province, 121 Huerta, Victoriano General, 131,133-34 Hunan, Province of, 77,126 Hung Hsiu-ch'uan, 18,72-77,154 Husayn (Grandson of Mohammed), 92, 93,96 Hussite Wars, 22 Imam, 91,95 Imamate, Doctrine of, 92,158-59,166 Industrial Revolution, 43-44 Iran-Iraq War, 168 Iraq, 65 Islamic Republican Party, 176 Italy, 48 Jahn, Octavio, 130 Japan, 44,50,124-26 Joachim of Fiore, 22,82-83 Joachite Prophecy, 22 Juarez, Benito, 134

Index Judaism, 17-19,65 Karbala, 93,95 Keddie, Nikki, 9 Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhullah Al-Musavi, 6,66,135-42,167 Kuomintang (KMT), 9,120,122-27,152, 163,174,176 Kwang-hsu, Emperor, 79 Land Regulations of the Heavenly Dynasty, 75 Lanternari, Vittorio, 33 Lazaretti, 30 League of the Elect, The, 22 Li-chi (Book of Rites), 72 Lifton, Robert Jay, 166 Liu Shao-ch'i, 128 Long March, The, 123-24,155 Maccabean revolt, 19 Madero, Francisco I., 129-34,176 Magana, Gildaro, 157 Magon, Enrique Flores, 131-32 Magon, Ricardo Flores, 132 Mahayana Rebellion, 69 Mahdi, 17,93 Majles,52,167 Manchu (Chi'ng) Dynasty, 6,48,50,7071,72,75,78-80,102,120,162 "Mandate of heaven," 70 Mao Tse-tung, 6,77-79,125-26,151-56, 162,163,166;riseto leadership of CCP, 123-28 Maoism, 12 Maoists, 6,164,176 Maria de la Candelaria, 86-87 Marx, Karl, 25-29,125 Marxism, 25-29,31,51,77,153,158 Matreya, 70-71 Mayans, 4,52 May Fourth Movement, 121 Mayo Indians, 50 Mendez, Luis, 130 Messiah, 17 Messianic Prophecy, 17 Mexican Constitution of 1917,134 Mexican Liberal Party (PLM), 130-31

193

Mexican War for Independence, 88-89 Mexico-U.S. War, 5 Millenarianism, defined, 1-3 Ming Dynasty, 70 Mixcoatl, Andres, 85 Moctezuma, Emperor, 81 Mohammed, 92,93 Montano, Otilio, 130 Morelly, 24-25 Morelos, State of, 51,87,90,129,157-58, 163 Morelos y Pavon, Father Jose Maria, 89, 102,133 Muntzer, Thomas, 22-23 Musaddiq, Mohammed, 54 Nahua Indians, 51,88 Nahualli, 88 Nahuatl,51,83 Nanking, Treaty of, 5,72 Nazism, 23 New York Call, 132 Nien,The,71 Oaxaca, State of, 50,90 Obregon, Alvaro, 133,135,181 Ocelotl, Martin, of Texcoco, 85-86 Opium War of 1839-42,48,71,100 Pahlavi, Mohammed Reza (Shah of Iran), 5,10,48-50, 55-58,136-37,174 Pahlavi, Reza Khan (Shah of Iran), 53 Pahlavi Dynasty, 54,55 Perez, Antonio, 87,90 Persian empire, 4,18,31 Perso-Russian War of 1844,100 Philosophes, 24 Puebla, State of, 90 Puritan Revolution (English Civil War), 18,23 Qajar Dynasty, 54,56,134 Quetzalcoatl (Ce Acatl Topiltzin), 80 Qum, Theological Seminary at, 135 Quran (Koran), 94,98,137 Razmara, Ali, 55 Red Guard, The, 155,164-65

194

Index

Red Spears, 70,121,126 Reform Laws of 1856-1857, 51 Revelation, Book of, 17,24,164 Revolutionary Mexico: To the Peoples of Europe and America, 1910-1918,158 Rhodakanaty, Plotino, 91 Rude\ George, 21,175 Russia (Soviet Union), 42,43,46,48,55 Russian Revolution, 54,66 Safavid Dynasty, 94 Savak (Iranian Secret Police), 10, 140 Sayyid Muhammad Ali. See Babi Movement Schwerdtfeger, Miguel Mendoza Lopez, 131 Selucids, 19 Shang Dynasty, 67 Shantung Province, 81 Shariati, Ali, 66,142,158-61,163 Shaykhism, 95-97 Shi'a Islam, 17,47,56,58,92-95,100, 140, 158-59,163, 166-67, 175 Sinification of Marxism, The, 78,127 Socialism, 25, 29,69 Society of God Worshippers (Taipings), The, 75 Society of the Faith, The, 70 Sonora, State of, 50 Soto y Gama, Antonio Diaz, 131, 157-58, 167 Spain, 42 Structural Theory of Revolution, 8-9 Sunni Islam, 17,92 Sun Yat-sen, 77,120,122,176 Taborites of Bohemia, 22-23 Taiping Rebellion, 18,72-78,100,121, 125 Taoism, 11,70,74-75,121,155 Taylor, Rafael Perez, 131 Tepeyac, 83 Three People's Principles, 11

Tomochic Rebellion, 92 Tonantzin (Our Lady Mother), 83 Tseng Kuo-fang, General, 76 Twelfth Imam, 92-93,98,99,136,139, 158-59 Twelvers, The (Twelver Shi'ism), 67,92, 137-44,158 Tzeltal Revolt, 87-88 Ulama, 46, 51-54,93,97,134 United States of America, 10,41,48-49, 51,54,136,161; and the overhtrow of the Mussadiq government, 56 Urrea de Caborra of Sonora, Teresa (Santa Teresa), 92 Utopia, 17,21,24,25,67,70-74,80,85, 86,90,91,102,174 Vasco de Quiroga, 86 Velayat-e faqih, 138-42,160 Virgin of Guadalupe, 82-84,90,102,132, 167 Wallace, Anthony F. C, 30-31 Weber, Max, 119 "Westoxification," 175 White Lotus Movement, 70,79,125 Wilson, Henry Lane, 133 Women's Association, The, 125 World War 1,9,122 World War II, 54, 125 Xia Dynasty, 67 Yaqui Indians, 53 Yellow Unban Revolt, 68-69 Yenan Commune, 125,152 Yuan Dynasty, 70 Zalacosta, Francisco, 90 Zapata, Emiliano, 128-35,143,173 Zapatistas, 6,70,91,102,143,156-58, 163,173,177

About the Author JAMES F. RINEHART is Assistant Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in International Relations, U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, Troy State University, Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. He has written extensively on millenarianism and revolution.

Revolution and the Millennium: China, Mexico, and Iran

Modern Iran, Roots and Revolution

Modernization and Revolution in China

Shi'i Jurisprudence and Constitution: Revolution in Iran

China and the Global Business Revolution

The First Millennium Development Goals Report, IRAN

China and the World Trading System: Entering the New Millennium

The Fertility Transition in Iran: Revolution and Reproduction

Mexico, the End of the Revolution

Zapatista!: Reinventing Revolution in Mexico

Revolution and Counter-revolution

Trade Environment and the Millennium

Trade, Environment, and the Millennium

The United States and Iran

Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution in China

Mexico and the Spanish Conquest

Iran and Its Culture

China and Iran: Ancient Partners in a Post-imperial World

The State and Revolution

Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution

The Consumer Revolution in Urban China (Studies on China, 22)

Hadrian and the Christians (Millennium-Studien Millennium Studies)

The Persian Night- Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution

The Nationalist Revolution in China, 1923 -1928

The Nationalist Revolution in China, 1923 -1928

The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution

The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution

Iran

Iran

Revolution and the Millennium: China, Mexico, and Iran

Modern Iran, Roots and Revolution

Modernization and Revolution in China

Shi'i Jurisprudence and Constitution: Revolution in Iran

China and the Global Business Revolution

The First Millennium Development Goals Report, IRAN

China and the World Trading System: Entering the New Millennium

The Fertility Transition in Iran: Revolution and Reproduction

Mexico, the End of the Revolution

Zapatista!: Reinventing Revolution in Mexico

Revolution and Counter-revolution

Trade Environment and the Millennium

Trade, Environment, and the Millennium

The United States and Iran

Women, the Family, and Peasant Revolution in China

Mexico and the Spanish Conquest

Iran and Its Culture

China and Iran: Ancient Partners in a Post-imperial World

The State and Revolution

Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution

The Consumer Revolution in Urban China (Studies on China, 22)

Hadrian and the Christians (Millennium-Studien Millennium Studies)

The Persian Night- Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution

The Nationalist Revolution in China, 1923 -1928

The Nationalist Revolution in China, 1923 -1928

The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution

The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution

Iran

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