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The Genesis of Russian Warlordism: Violence and Governance during the First World War and the Civil War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2010

JOSHUA SANBORN
JOSHUA SANBORN*
Affiliation:
Lafayette College, 309 Ramer History House, 718 Sullivan Rd., Easton, PA 18042, United States; sanbornj@lafayette.edu.
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Abstract

The article looks at how the collapse of the tsarist regime in Russia and the civil war which followed created the conditions wherein a class of violent paramilitary entrepreneurs, usually veterans of the Great War, were able to operate almost entirely without restraint. The author terms this phenomenon ‘warlordism’, and shows how the rise and eventual fall of warlords was connected to the absence and restoration of state control during 1917–23. The article calls for an interpretation of violence during this period which eschews the reductive dualism of ‘red’ and ‘white’ terror in favour of an analysis which emphasises the role played by individual and largely autonomous warlords.

La genèse du warlordism russe: la violence et gouvernement durant la première guerre mondiale et la guerre civile

Cet article analyse comment la chute du régime tsarise et la guerre civile qui s'ensuivit ont créé des conditions dans lesquels une classe de entrepreneurs paramilitaires violents, formés principalement de vétérans de la Grande Guerre, a été capable d'agir presque sans contraintes. L'auteur désigne ce phénomène de ‘warlordism’, et démontre comment l'ascension et la chute finale des warlords étaient liées à l'absence et au rétablissement du contrôle étatique durant les années 1917–23. Cet article fait appel à une interprétation de la violence durant cette période qui renonce à une simplification qui oppose la terreur des ‘rouges’ à celle des ‘blancs’, et lui préfère une analyse qui met l'accent sur le rôle joué par des warlords individuels et largement autonomes.

Die entstehung des russischen kriegsherrentums. gewalt und herrschaft während des ersten weltkriegs und des russischen bürgerkriegs

Dieser Artikel untersucht die Entstehung einer Klasse von Unternehmer der Gewalt, vor allem Veteranen des Ersten Weltkrieges, denen es der Zusammenbruch des Zarenregimes in Russland und der folgende Bürgerkrieg ermöglichte, an Macht zu gewinnen und beinah ohne jede Zurückhaltung operieren zu können. Der Autor bezeichnet dieses System als ‘warlordism’ und zeigt die Verbindungen von Aufstieg und späterem Fall der warlords mit der Abwesenheit und der Wiedereinführung staatlicher Gewalt zwischen 1917 und 1923. Der Beitrag verlangt eine Neuinterpretation von Gewalt in dieser Zeitperiode jenseits des vereinfachenden Gegensatz von ‘rotem’ und ‘weißen’ Terror zugunsten einer Analyse der Rolle individueller und überwiegend autonomer warlords.

Type
Articles
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 19 , Issue 3: Aftershocks: Violence in Dissolving Empires after the First World War , August 2010 , pp. 195 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

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