Allied Intervention and the Russian Civil War, 1917–1922

MICHAEL KETTLE. Russia and the Allies, 1917–1920: Vol. II: The Road to Intervention, March–November 1918. London and New York: Routledge, 1988. Pp. 401.

RICHARD LUCKETT. The White Generals: An Account of the White Movement and the Russian Civil War. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987. Pp. xvi, 413.

TERENCE EMMONS, trans, and ed. Time of Troubles: The Diary of Iurii Vladimirovich Got'e. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. Pp. xvii, 513.

DONALD J. RALEIGH, ed. A Russian Civil War Diary: Alexis Babine in Saratov, 1917–1922. Durham, N.C. and London: Duke University Press, 1988. Pp. xxiv, 240.     

The Emergence of Political Parties and Political Dynamics in Afghanistan, 1964–73

The 1960s in Afghanistan's history were marked by the emergence of a number of political parties, from monarchist to radical left and right. They played an important role in the social, cultural and political dynamics of the time and even the future of the country. This paper explores how political parties emerged in a country which was characterized as a tribal-peasant society with only a very small number of educated people. It also discusses why the monarch would not sign the Political Parties' Bill and how this influenced Afghanistan's political culture and led to the radicalization of the political parties. In addition, it examines how the anti-government and radical political parties managed to mobilize people and dominate the political scene while the pro-government and nationalist parties had little influence.     

The United States and the Question of the Greco-Turkish War, 1919–1922

Abstract

In the post World War II era, the strain in the trilateral relation between the United States, Greece and Turkey is one of the most disquieting and vexatious elements to emerge from American foreign policy. The so-called southeastern flank of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is currently beset with tensions that threaten to impede its contributory role in NATO's overall defense strategy for southeastern Europe (if they have not already done so). In this political drama, the principal antagonists, Greece and Turkey, have a number of outstanding differences which on occasion have brought them to the precipice of war. As a result, the United States has intervened as the protagonist and consequently has become the recipient of the enmity of these two NATO allies for not recognizing their ‘special’ claims or interests. As in the characteristic classical Greek drama, the chorus of NATO partners offer a common chant: they are united in proclaiming that the current state of affairs seems to portend failure to the concerted effort to defend Western Europe.     

Food on the Borderlands: Josie Underwood’s Civil War Diary and the Kentucky Home Front, 1860–1862

The diary of Johanna Louisa ‘Josie’ Underwood (1840–1923), the daughter of Kentucky lawyer, politician and plantation owner Warner Underwood, portrays what happened to many elite households in Kentucky during the American Civil War (1861–1865), especially with its depiction of food as a scarce, and thus increasingly valuable, resource. Spanning the first two years of the conflict, Josie’s diary is essentially a war narrative written by a well-educated, articulate, outspoken, Unionist woman from a slave-owning family who was barely out of her teens when the fighting began. As she reveals through her entries, her state and in particular her hometown of Bowling Green, was a ‘hotbed of political and military action’, and at the centre of this ‘hotbed’ of activity was food. Often historians think about wartime hunger as a function of the later years of the war, but as Josie’s diary elucidates, food scarcity was an immediate and constant issue. Consequently, food became an important commodity in the borderlands during the war, especially in occupied cities like Bowling Green, where it was a vital, yet elusive, military and civilian resource which, when accessed and controlled, functioned as social currency and a political symbol of power, especially for women.     

Arendt’s Promise to Civil Society: Bridging the Social and the Political

In Arendt’s political theory the concept of civil society is often read as an extension of her concept of the social and is therefore dismissed as irrelevant to her political vision. This view leaves Arendtian theory in an exclusivist position with regard to contemporary political contexts and experiences. My aim in this essay is to address this problem by discussing the relationship of Arendtian theory and the concept of civil society in the context of contemporary political experience. This calls for not only a particular reading of the social in Arendt but, more importantly, for a joint reading of Arendt’s concept of the council state and civil society. Here, civil society is defined as the associations institutionalized by the voluntary engagement of active citizens, which definition, I argue, is compatible with Arendt’s concept of politics as action, plurality, and participation.     

Neville Chamberlain and the Spanish Civil War, 1936–9

Neville Chamberlain's role in the Spanish Civil War is a neglected subject in the history of the conflict. Yet he wielded considerable influence over Britain's Spanish policy. Like most Conservatives, his ideological sympathies lay more with the Nationalist forces led by General Francisco Franco than the besieged Republicans. At the same time, he deplored the intervention of Germany, Italy, and Soviet Russia and was strongly committed to the policy of non-intervention, which he genuinely believed had confined the Spanish conflict and prevented its escalation into a European conflagration. He was strongly opposed to granting belligerent rights to Franco unless foreign volunteers were withdrawn from Spain. He deplored the bombing of civilians in Spain, sought to help the many refugees caused by the war, and tried unsuccessfully on occasions to mediate an end to the conflict. The civil war was a considerable obstacle which threatened to undermine Chamberlain's appeasement of Fascist Italy, intended to weaken the Rome–Berlin Axis, and to constrain Germany in pursuit of general European appeasement. The Prime Minister's commitment to non-intervention in Spain, more the creation of the Foreign Office than his own, did no serious damage to British economic and strategic interests before June 1940.