The Revolutionary Organisation: Armed Struggle from the Late 18th Century to the Present

by Erik Van Ree

Overview

This is the first comprehensive study of the phenomenon of the armed-struggle revolutionary organisation. The Revolutionary Organisation covers the period from the late 18th century to the present, is global in scope, and discusses organisations inspired by all main ideological traditions: communist, anti-colonialist, nationalist, democratic, Islamist, fascist, and white supremacist. The condition of life-and-death struggle with the state imposes similar patterns of operation upon these organisations, irrespective of their ideological inclinations. This work interprets armed-struggle revolutionary organisations as hybrids of three orientations: an apparatus of professional revolutionaries; an emotional community sustained by ideology, battle comradeship, and ritual; and an instrument of physical force nurturing an heroic organisational ethos.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789004737211
Publisher:	Brill Academic Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	10/30/2025
Series:	Studies in Global Social History , #57
Pages:	364
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Erik van Ree, Ph.D. (1988), University of Amsterdam, is Research Associate at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam. He has written numerous journal articles, and among his earlier books are The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin (2002) and Boundaries of Utopia – Imagining Communism from Plato to Stalin (2015).

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements
Abbreviations

PART 1
Introduction

1 Introduction
 1 Revolutionary Organisations
 2 Revolution and Modernity
 3 Definitions
 4 Problems of Definition
 5 Three Great Traditions
 6 Making Revolution: Spontaneous and Planned Revolutions
 7 Methodology
 8 Subjectivity, Sources

2 The Revolutionary Organisation
 1 Apparatus, Emotional Community, Instrument of Physical Force
 2 Apparatus
 3 Emotional Community
 4 Instrument of Physical Force
 5 The Life-and-Death Struggle

PART 2
Professional Revolutionaries

3 Revolutionary Commitment
 1 Social Injustice and Humiliation
 2 Humiliated Nation. Humiliated Race
 3 Gender: Humiliation and the Independent Life
 4 Heroes Old and New
 5 Heroic Self-Sculpting
 6 The Life of Greatness
 7 Conversion
 8 The Criminal Element
 9 Commitment

4 Professional Revolutionaries
 1 Revolution as Skill
 2 Revolution as Secrecy
 3 Revolution on Salary
 4 Revolutionary Criminality
 5 Bureaucracies in Permanent Crisis: Exiles versus Undergrounders
 6 Bureaucracies in Permanent Crisis: the Leader-Centred Organisation
 7 Leadership and Gender

5 Revolutionary Intelligentsia, Revolutionary Margin
 1 Revolutionary Social Mobility
 2 Drifters
 3 The Family Uprooted
 4 International Armed Solidarity
 5 Total Immobility
  5.1 Revolutionary Bohemia
 6 Communal Living
 7 The Mainstream (Or Not-So-Mainstream) Lifestyle
 8 The Ascetic-Puritanical Lifestyle
 9 The Libertine Lifestyle

6 Emotional Community
 1 The Revolutionary Personality
 2 Battle
 3 The Idea
 4 Collective Study
 5 Ritual
 6 Initiation Ceremonies, the Oath
 7 Ceremonies of Periodic Meeting, Martyr Rituals
 8 Modes of Address and Dress Codes
 9 Revolutionary Symbolism

7 Instrument of Physical Force
 1 Warfare and Terrorism
 2 Legitimation: Ends and Means
 3 A Job to Be Done, Concern, Euphoria, Massacre Fantasies
 4 Violence as Purification
 5 Revolutionary Heroism, Embedded Heroism
 6 Heroic Self-Understanding, Heroic Poetry
 7 Heroic Propaganda, Heroic Mobilisation
 8 Revolutionary Heroines
 9 New Times

PART 3
Apparatus

8 Professional-Revolutionary Philosophies: the Organisation
 1 The Pyramid
 2 Hierarchy No, Organisation Yes
 3 The Pyramid Perfected
 4 The Leader
 5 From Single Leader to ‘Non-Organisation’
 6 Emir, Apparatus, Warriors
 7 Conclusion

9 The Revolutionary Organisation: Beginnings
 1 The Army Problem
 2 Bands, Committees, Secret Societies, Religious Congregations
 3 Clubs and Parties
 4 Volunteer Armies
 5 Time of Transition
 6 The Rise of the Party in Arms

10 The Politico-Military Organisation
 1 Politico-Military Secret Societies
 2 Communist Parties in Arms
 3 Parties in Arms: Fascism
 4 Parties in Arms: Revolutionary Nationalism
 5 The Volunteer Army Pyramid
 6 Volunteer Army Two-Branchism
 7 Islamist Volunteer Armies
 8 Committees of Military Officers
 9 Terrorist Army Fractions
 10 The Politico-Military Control System
 11 Military Rebellions
 12 Supranational Organisation

11 Revolutionary Etatisation
 1 Revolutionary Etatisation: Process
 2 Revolutionary Etatisation: Ideology
 3 The Nineteenth Century
 4 Modes of Etatisation
 5 Rural Guerrillas: State Construction
 6 Rural Guerrillas: the Social Contract
 7 Urban Insurrection
 8 Urban Guerrillas

Conclusion: Final Thoughts on Revolutionary Organisation and Violence
 1 The Armed-Struggle Ethos
 2 Revolution as War
 3 The Future of Armed Revolution

Bibliography
Index
Preface and Acknowledgements
Abbreviations

PART 1
Introduction

1 Introduction
 1 Revolutionary Organisations
 2 Revolution and Modernity
 3 Definitions
 4 Problems of Definition
 5 Three Great Traditions
 6 Making Revolution: Spontaneous and Planned Revolutions
 7 Methodology
 8 Subjectivity, Sources

2 The Revolutionary Organisation
 1 Apparatus, Emotional Community, Instrument of Physical Force
 2 Apparatus
 3 Emotional Community
 4 Instrument of Physical Force
 5 The Life-and-Death Struggle

PART 2
Professional Revolutionaries

3 Revolutionary Commitment
 1 Social Injustice and Humiliation
 2 Humiliated Nation. Humiliated Race
 3 Gender: Humiliation and the Independent Life
 4 Heroes Old and New
 5 Heroic Self-Sculpting
 6 The Life of Greatness
 7 Conversion
 8 The Criminal Element
 9 Commitment

4 Professional Revolutionaries
 1 Revolution as Skill
 2 Revolution as Secrecy
 3 Revolution on Salary
 4 Revolutionary Criminality
 5 Bureaucracies in Permanent Crisis: Exiles versus Undergrounders
 6 Bureaucracies in Permanent Crisis: the Leader-Centred Organisation
 7 Leadership and Gender

5 Revolutionary Intelligentsia, Revolutionary Margin
 1 Revolutionary Social Mobility
 2 Drifters
 3 The Family Uprooted
 4 International Armed Solidarity
 5 Total Immobility
  5.1 Revolutionary Bohemia
 6 Communal Living
 7 The Mainstream (Or Not-So-Mainstream) Lifestyle
 8 The Ascetic-Puritanical Lifestyle
 9 The Libertine Lifestyle

6 Emotional Community
 1 The Revolutionary Personality
 2 Battle
 3 The Idea
 4 Collective Study
 5 Ritual
 6 Initiation Ceremonies, the Oath
 7 Ceremonies of Periodic Meeting, Martyr Rituals
 8 Modes of Address and Dress Codes
 9 Revolutionary Symbolism

7 Instrument of Physical Force
 1 Warfare and Terrorism
 2 Legitimation: Ends and Means
 3 A Job to Be Done, Concern, Euphoria, Massacre Fantasies
 4 Violence as Purification
 5 Revolutionary Heroism, Embedded Heroism
 6 Heroic Self-Understanding, Heroic Poetry
 7 Heroic Propaganda, Heroic Mobilisation
 8 Revolutionary Heroines
 9 New Times

PART 3
Apparatus

8 Professional-Revolutionary Philosophies: the Organisation
 1 The Pyramid
 2 Hierarchy No, Organisation Yes
 3 The Pyramid Perfected
 4 The Leader
 5 From Single Leader to ‘Non-Organisation’
 6 Emir, Apparatus, Warriors
 7 Conclusion

9 The Revolutionary Organisation: Beginnings
 1 The Army Problem
 2 Bands, Committees, Secret Societies, Religious Congregations
 3 Clubs and Parties
 4 Volunteer Armies
 5 Time of Transition
 6 The Rise of the Party in Arms

10 The Politico-Military Organisation
 1 Politico-Military Secret Societies
 2 Communist Parties in Arms
 3 Parties in Arms: Fascism
 4 Parties in Arms: Revolutionary Nationalism
 5 The Volunteer Army Pyramid
 6 Volunteer Army Two-Branchism
 7 Islamist Volunteer Armies
 8 Committees of Military Officers
 9 Terrorist Army Fractions
 10 The Politico-Military Control System
 11 Military Rebellions
 12 Supranational Organisation

11 Revolutionary Etatisation
 1 Revolutionary Etatisation: Process
 2 Revolutionary Etatisation: Ideology
 3 The Nineteenth Century
 4 Modes of Etatisation
 5 Rural Guerrillas: State Construction
 6 Rural Guerrillas: the Social Contract
 7 Urban Insurrection
 8 Urban Guerrillas

Conclusion: Final Thoughts on Revolutionary Organisation and Violence
 1 The Armed-Struggle Ethos
 2 Revolution as War
 3 The Future of Armed Revolution

Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Revolutionary organisations have shaped our world — think of the Bolsheviks, the African National Congress, or the Taliban. Yet there is no comprehensive study of what they are and how they function, as distinct formations. Erik van Ree’s brilliant new book fills that gap, transforming our understanding of how revolutionaries have crafted their sense of identity. In an extraordinary work of breadth, erudition, and insight, van Ree demonstrates that armed-struggle revolutionary organizations find definition and emotional community in their preparedness to take and retain power through violent means, acting according to their own standards of propriety and sanctity."
– James Ryan, Reader (associate professor) in Modern European History, Cardiff University, and author of Lenin's Terror: The Ideological Origins of Early Soviet State Violence (2012)

"This study of violent revolutionary organizations and revolutionaries over several centuries and continents is remarkable for the breadth and depth of its analysis. Based upon a deep reading of primary and secondary literature, it is original and challenging, as we have come to expect from Erik van Ree’s brilliant and penetrating scholarship. This is a work of genuine world history that will be essential reading for historians, political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, and students of international terrorism."
Ian D. Thatcher, Professor in History, Ulster University

"Sometimes someone writes a book that makes us wonder why it wasn’t written sooner. The Revolutionary Organisation is such a book. A global account of one of the great world-making forces of the modern era, it’s a massive undertaking, but Erik van Ree pulls it off beautifully, perhaps above all because his succinct fusion of history and sociology so successfully exposes for us the singular ethos of revolutionaries and their epic lives across great swaths of space and time. Cohesive in scope, convincing in its argumentation, and extremely clear in its writing, The Revolutionary Organisation is immensely useful for scholars of political violence, but also directly engaging for all readers interested in the history of revolutionary movements and moments.
Claudia Verhoeven, Associate Professor of History, Cornell University, and author of The Odd Man Karakozov: Imperial Russia, Modernity, and the Birth of Terrorism (2011) and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the History of Terrorism (2022)

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