CIVIL WAR; WORLD CIVIL WAR AND REVOLUTION – THE IMPORTANCE OF ROMAN SCHNUR
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Special Report No. 989
Civil War, World Civil War and Revolution –
the Importance of Roman Schnur
Center for Research on Geopolitics (CRG) 2004 (revised 2007, 2019)
Director: Mr. Bertil Haggman, LL.M., author. E-mail: bertilhaggman@hotmail.com
Introduction
During the Cold War civil war was mostly seen in the light of Marxist-Leninist revolution. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 this demise did not lead to a lesser number of civil wars. On the contrary the number has risen considerably. In 2001 nearly all wars were internal. International wars tend to be short while civil wars last on average about seven years. The duration is actually increasing.
It can therefore be concluded that the German professor Roman Schnur was a visionary, who recognized the problem of civil war decades ahead of colleagues. Thus it is a sobering experience to read his essay “Zwischenbilanz: Zur Theorie des Buergerkrieges – Bemerkungen ueber einen vernachlässigten Gegenstand” (in Revolution und Welbuergerkrieg – Studien zur Ouverture nach 1789, Schriften zur Verfassungsgeschichte, Band 35, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1983, 145 pages).
Schnur (1927 – 1996) served briefly in the German Air Force at the end of World War II to study administrative law after 1946. As a jurist he rose quickly in the academic world and also served as judge. His first field of research was the internal religious civil war in France before around 1800.
Much of the life work of this jurist was on the border of literary history and political science. Unfortunately he did not stay with the subject of civil war. But some of his writing is still of profound interest.
The Structure of Civil War
In his essay “Zur Theorie des Buergerkrieges” (first published in 1980) Schnur called for structural research in the area of internal war: “(Es) mangelt…strukturierte Beschreibungen und Analysen von Buergerkriegen, deren Verfeinerung in Bezug auf ständige Bildung von Arbeitshypothesen wichtige Erkenntnisse verspricht. Schon ein vorläufiger Vergleich dieser Art, die einige neuere Buergerkriege zum Gegenstand hat, zwingt wichtige Fragen…auf.” (p. 121). He also complained that there was too much research on revolution. This was certainly the case in the era when political science was dominated by Marxists. After 1991 there has been some change, but a basic, structural theory is still lacking.
The Beginning
It can with some certainty be argued that the birth of civil war was outside continental Europe. What has been called the English Civil War was rather four civil wars in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales from 1642 to 1651. The term, of course, is of latin origin (bellum civile) and Rome was certainly struck by what was also called bellum domesticum and bellum intestinum. Already in the terminology is a problem with the existing large number of terms (insurrection, conspiracy, revolution, pronunciamento [in Spain and South America], putsch, insurgency, coup d’etat).
One possible definition of civil war is that it is a war between parties or factions within the same nation. One of the bloodiest and most terrible civil wars was the Russian Civil War 1917 – 1920. It involved on one side a united communist force and on the other side a number of different factions, some defending the old order and others seeking a democratic Russia. Actually the war was also a war of conquest by the Bolsheviks trying to secure the future Soviet Union as a base for world revolution:
Lenin expressed it in the following way:
“Der Ausgang des Kampfes hängt in letzter Instanz davon ab, dass Russland, Indien, China usw., die gigantische Mehrheit der Bevölkerung der Erde stellen. Gerade diese Mehrheit der Bevölkerung wird denn auch in den letzten Jahren mit ungewöhnlicher Schnelligkeit in den Kampf um ihre Befreiung hineingerissen, so dass es in diesem Sinne nicht die Spur eines Zweifels darueber geben kann, wie die endgueltige Entscheidung des Weltkampfes ausfallen wird.” (published in Pravda on March 4, 1923. German translation in Theodor Arnold, Der Revolutionäre Krieg, 1961).
In the case of the Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1939) it started as an uprising by a military commander against a government that increasingly became dependant on Stalin and the Soviet Union. The other side then turned to Germany and Italy for military support. If republican Spain had won the war it would have resulted in the first Soviet satellite regime in Western Europe, as in the end Stalin controlled the government in Madrid.
Asia
The Chinese Civil War (1927 – 1949) was an example of Lenin’s foolish prediction in Pravda in 1923. The Marxist-Leninist side attempted, with the aid of the Soviet Union, to take power in China. This succeeded on the mainland, but the communists failed to crush the enemy completely. The nationalists survived by retreating to Taiwan, where the Kuomingtang held power for many decades. The Republic of China (Taiwan) has remained free of communist rule and China might well in the future experience a national revolution that establishes a non-communist government.
The Vietnam War (1963 – 1975) was a matter of a communist regime in the northern part of Vietnam using violence taking power in South Vietnam as well. Many observers, until the truth was revealed after 1975, believed the Vietnam war was a civil war between two factions in South Vietnam. After the war Viet Cong (or the National Liberation Front) was proven to be just that, a front for the regime in Hanoi.
Africa
The first large scale civil war in Africa was to some extent an ethnic war between 1967 and 1970 in one of the largest states on the continent. It has been followed by a large number of civil wars in Central Africa, West Africa, East Africa and North Africa. The Sudan war was both ethnic and religious. It would go to far in this short review to continue the samples. It is sufficient to conclude that Professor Schnur was correct when he called for structural research on the subject of civil war.
Conclusion
For Schnur typology is one important aspect (“einer ueberwölbenden ‘Typologie’ von Buergerkriegen”). Another is the case of how the war evolves (“Es handelt sich dabei um einen Ablauf, der als solcher irgendein Ende findet.”). The reason for civil war is of less interest than to follow the development and in many cases radicalization of the two sides. Finally it is important to note that Schnur discussed the possibility that civil wars would develop into a world civil war. There is reason to believe that such a global conflict started in 2001 with the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington D.C. The essay in the 1983 collection could well be the basis for future research. There is also a warning: that the idea of total world peace brings about the necessity of total world civil war. How to solve this problem is one of the most important issues in the twentyfirst century.
