A Comparison of Decolonisation: India and Vietnam

By cstcroix

After World War II the rate of decolonisation around the world dramatically increased as a number of colonies were striving for independence from their foreign rulers. France and the United Kingdom, holding some of the largest colonies in the world, were feeling this wave of nationalism, and both suffered colonial loss around the same time. The United Kingdom lost India in 1947, and France lost the colony of Indochina, modern day Vietnam, shortly after World War II in 1945. The two colonies were both the largest of their colonisers at the time and both were economically most contributing. The United Kingdom and France were both unwilling to lose their most profitable colonies, so they took similar approaches to demoralise their rebellious inhabitants. Both provided a strong military presence and used aggressive tactics to combat rebels. Despite the United Kingdom and France’s efforts to avoid the loss of their colonies both eventually gained their independence. The United Kingdom and France avoided, and even refused, peaceful methods of separation, and only tightened their grip on the colonies. This led to instability and created leaders like Gandhi and Ho Chi Ming, as people looked to find individuals to follow on their road to independence. Indochina and India, and its new leaders, were unprepared for independence and the two colonies, and the people, became divided which would later involve into major conflicts. Modern history views these events as two very different types of decolonisation, the following essay will show the similarities of the decolonisation, conflicts, and situations both France and the United Kingdom faced leading up to, during, and after the process of decolonisation with their colonies of India and Indochina.

During the 1940’s France and the United Kingdom could have avoided the large wave of nationalism in their colonies had they created and maintained a stronger presence within those areas during the major conflict of World War II. During the war the British and French military presence in their colonies was greatly diminished, as each nation was forced to remove a large sum of troops out in order to assist with the war in Europe and to address the threat in the east. Also during this time the colonies of Indochina and India saw the rise of very important leaders, who took control of the main independence movements in their respective nations. India saw the passive rise of Gandhi, and the Indian Congress passed its ‘Quit India’ resolution to remove British rule. The French witnessed Ho Chi Minh lead the charge for independence in Indochina. Both Gandhi and Ho Chi Minh took advantage of their colonisers weaknesses during the war, leading their countries into rebellious actions and fighting for political reforms.

The British had witnessed strong Indian nationalism as far back as 1857 when a riot had broken out in Meerut; this made the British realise the potential threat of the Indian people, after this the British sought out to tighten their hold over India. At that time the British government dissolved the control of the East Indie Company and proceeded to take direct control of India, once this was accomplished no less than 60,000 British soldiers were found in India. The strong military presence Britain maintained in India continued to kept a considerable amount of control until the outbreak of World War II. After the war broke out The United Kingdom removed most of its military presence, as the troops were called back home Indian nationalism began to rise. A strong anti-British movement began during the war, when Japan was drawing close to India and when the Indian Congress created ‘Quit India’, a campaign to finally and completely remove The United Kingdom from India. It was this campaign that initiated the strong nationalist movement that eventually lead to Indian independence. It was also during this time that Gandhi became a highly respected leader of the Indians, and the people followed his every word. When Gandhi withdrew his support from those who fought in Germany and Japan it had created a civil disobedience campaign, the people began to riot and sabotage important British establishments and it hindered the allied war effort. Indian nationalism increased and the Britain’s military and political control decreased. It was these many events of the 1940s that eventually lead to Indian independence.

France, like The United Kingdom, also experienced a wave of nationalism in their colony of Indochina during World War II, when France also had to withdraw its troops in order to combat the invading German forces in Europe. With the reduced number of French troops, Indochina was an easy target for the Japanese to invade and the French temporally lost control over the colony during this time period. Having seen the Japanese invade and defeat the remaining French forces, the people of Indochina realised that it was also possible for them to reclaim their country from their colonial oppressors. It was during this time that Ho Chi Minh founded a communist party called the Viet Minh, the party was originally created to be an anti-Japanese movement but later it involved to become a Vietnamese independence group. Ho Chi Minh set to work with a great deal of skill and determination, assisted by his two closest colleagues who were also Communist, they preached strong nationalism. Like Gandhi, Ho Chi Minh “was a man of incomparable prestige and popularity. There can be no doubt that it was a disaster that France underestimated this man” . Had the French maintained a larger presence in their colony Ho Chi Minh would have never risen to power, and the resulting nationalism may not have occurred.

The violent and political troubles of decolonisation could have been avoided if The United Kingdom and France had allowed peaceful negotiations to work earlier in the inevitable separation process. In 1931, had The United Kingdom given India the proper political voice, and showed real concern for the issues of the colony, the strong nationalist movement that developed in India could have been avoided. A similar event happened to the French in 1946 with Indochina. At that time a proposal was being made for Indochina’s independence, by the separatist leader Ho Chi Minh. A peaceful solution could have been easily accomplished and Indochina would have remained a part of the French union, but the French refused to give in and wanted to keep Indochina as it was. Both The United Kingdom and France would not listen to their colonies, and this inevitably led to the major issues that arose with the subsequent decolonisation.

The United Kingdom’s negotiations with India took the form of what was termed a Round Table Conference, which took place three times during 1931, to determine the future of India. These conferences were long overdue since the Indian people had identified their lack of representation in Indian and British affairs for some time. Indian nationalist movements for a stronger voice date back to the late nineteenth century when the urban population grew frustrated with their lack of a political voice. The British solution to meet the demands of the Indian people was to hold a Round Table Conference. The first two talks accomplished very little, and the same could be said for the third, except for the fact that The United Kingdom allowed Indian independence movement leader Gandhi to attend the meeting. This was due to the fact that Gandhi was increasingly gaining power in India, and even gaining popularity in The United Kingdom itself. The third session of the Round Table Conference was presented to the people of The United Kingdom and India as being the session in which the major issues concerning the fair representation of India had been resolved, but this was not the case, little was accomplished at these Round Table Conferences were only held to humour the Indian people. The United Kingdom believed that these events would appease the Indian nationalists, but Gandhi would return to India to only strengthen the Indian movement, and continue the fight for Indian independence.

France’s negotiations were much like The United Kingdom’s in the sense that it appeared that the French only met with separatist leader, Ho Chi Minh, to have him believe that he was making a difference. Ho Chi Minh wanted to reach a peaceful solution with France, some evidence suggests that during these negotiations Ho Chi Minh wanted to come to an agreement with France and that he intended to keep Indochina apart of the French Union . Ho Chi Minh was aware of the economic instability of Indochina at the time, and they would have preferred French aide over Chinese or American assistance. In 1946, a letter of agreement was even drawn out between the two sides, and an agreement was close, but eventually the French would reject the entire agreement. A line had now been drawn between the French and Ho Chi Minh, and his Viet Minh. The people had to choose between the democratic coloniser, France, or the Communist Viet Minh. “One thing does seem certain is that if both sides had stuck to the letter of the March 1946 Agreement and war had been avoided; Vietnam would be a wholly Communist State”. Had the people of Indochina been united under one leader the eventual Indochinese Wars, and the later American Vietnam War, could have been avoided and modern Vietnam would have developed in a very different way. France approached their colony much in the same way the British had with India; they met with the dominate leader to humour them, they both rejected a peaceful solution, and finally their negotiations accomplished little to nothing, leading only to more conflict.

One of the most critical mistakes made by the French and British, a mistake that led to the loss of their colonies, was their lack of action against the nationalist leaders, Gandhi and Ho Chi Minh. These two leaders were the heart of the independence movements in their nations, had these leaders not been given the chance to control the nationalism movement they would have never have been as strong, or as effective. The British allowed Gandhi to rise. With his passive protests he won the hearts of his people, gained the respect of the British people and humiliate the British ruling power in India. The French also allowed the rise of a strong leader, Ho Chi Minh, who possessed great control over the people. Ho Chi Minh led a very aggressive campaign against the French during the Indochinese Wars, which resulted in embarrassing losses for the French army. Both The United Kingdom and France failed to rebuff or neutralise two very influential rebels in time to save their colonies from separation.

India’s actions leading up to separation were considerably passive compared to that of the people of Indochina, but that nation’s methods were just as effective. India’s most effective tool against the British was its leader, Gandhi and his “insistence on non-violence won for him the admiration of all the world and secured support for the movement” The United Kingdom lost the support of the Indian people and was beginning to lose the support of its own people, the British had allowed Gandhi to gain too much power too fast. The United Kingdom had always been accustom to having easy control over the Indian government. The United Kingdom simply put people into power who supported the British rule in India, people who would put down any rebellions or nationalist movements or prevented other leaders from gaining power. By removing the opposition and letting friends have the power The United Kingdom had always kept control, it was their oldest trick at holding all the cards. By allowing Gandhi to gain the loyalty of most Indian people the British could no longer just sweep away the problem with bribery, or by putting someone else in charge. Had they removed Gandhi from the picture during the rebellion the nation would have erupted in rage and a long ensuing war may have followed. The United Kingdom acted to late on the Gandhi issue and before they realised that something needed to be done Gandhi had the power of the people.

Unlike India Indochina fought fighting for their freedom with their newly established nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh. Once the separation agreement between France and Indochina failed, aggressive conflict appeared to be the only solution for Indochina to gain its independence. Not only was Ho Chi Minh a great political leader but a brilliant militant tactician as well. His Viet Minh took up arms against the French and pro-French Indochinese in a war that lasted almost a decade, which later became known as the Indochina War. Ho Chi Minh became such an influential leader that he convinced half a nation to not only fight against their colonial overseers but to also fight against their own people, those that supported and fought for the French. Much like Gandhi’s peaceful protests and constant disobedience had embarrassed the empire, the Viet Minh embarrassed the French at the battle of Dien Bien Phu. French forces fought for at least fifty-five days and in the end the French not only lost the battle but they suffered 7,184 casualties and some 11,000 men remained on their feet to be marched off into captivity. The French were defeated by forces from their own colony, a very embarrassing moment for the French, and it only got worse after this battle as, after years of conflict, the French eventually lost the war. The French had their chance to take out the rebellious forces, and Ho Chi Minh, but they never could overcome the rallied Indochinese people. The French lost their colony because, unlike Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh, they never were able to gain the minds of the people of Indo-China.

Despite their efforts to stop the nationalistic independence movement, both France and The United Kingdom eventually lost their most powerful colonies and with this they also suffered significant economic loses. Both The United Kingdom and France were very dependent on their colonies for food, supplies, and even money. The British relied heavily on the economic trade with its colony, India “ran a trade surplus with Europe, the United States and Southeast Asia but a deficit with Britain, whose best customer it was” . As India began to gain its independence, it relied less and less on Britain and after the loss of India other countries imports of British goods dropped from £78 million to £51 million. France was just as dependent on Indochina as The United Kingdom was on India. France received numerous goods from Indochina such as rice, rubber, cotton, silk, corn, coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco, and pepper, also Indochina’s largest industries were situated in the coal and zinc market, which were some of its most valuable exports. Most goods produced in Indochina were exported, thus making large amounts of money for Indochina. The United Kingdom and France became so dependent on their colonies that they began to look at them as suppliers rather than nations with needs and issues that needed to be addressed. After the separation, since France and The United Kingdom depended more on their colonies then their colonies depended on them, only the colonisers suffered economically. Both lost their most valuable colonies, and some of their most needed supplies.

Following decolonisation both France and left their respective colonies in similar conditions. After The United Kingdom left India the country became divided between the Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, which resulted in numerous conflicts. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children were slaughtered, other hundreds of thousands maimed, and approximately twelve millions rendered homeless. This division also created the separate countries of Pakistan and India, who subsequently went to war against each other and to this day still have extremely strained relations. France also left its colony in a similar situation of division, resulting in the creation of the democratic South Vietnam, and the northern communist Vietnam. This set the stage for external interference by two of the world’s super powers. Soviet Russian leader Joseph Stalin supported North Vietnam, much like he had done for North Korea during the Korean War, and Stalin was prepared to encourage the militant course. America entered the situation on the platform that they wanted to assist the French in regaining its colony. This set up a battle of democracy versus communism, which led to the Vietnam War, a war which caused many more causalities, and unnecessary conflict.

Had The United Kingdom and France been proactive in the management of their colonies, the painful process of decolonisation could have been easily avoided. If early on France and The United Kingdom had given the proper political voice to their colonies, and had addressed the issues that their colony had placed in front of them, the destabilisation, conflicts and economic losses may have been prevented, or at least tempered. Both The United Kingdom and France failed to see the benefits of a peaceful separation, in which they could have kept valuable trading partners and would not have become resented by the people. Because of the arrogance of these two countries great conflicts ensued, the Indochinese Wars and Vietnam War, and also the wars between India and Pakistan. In all of these conflicts thousands of lives were lost, industry was destroyed, and nations became divided. These two processes of decolonisation had very similar situations from the negotiations, to the rise of leaders and from the economic loss to the conflicts that followed.

Is the internet rewriting history?

I thought this from the BBC was worth posting:
Is the internet rewriting history?

I already mentioned it in a reply to Smilin' Dave's article "History vs. Psuedo-History vs. Conspiracy Theory", but then thought it was worth a new entry to bring it to people's attention.

IMHO spreading of false information online and presenting it as truth is one of the most concerning aspects of the internet today. Particularly the revision of past events to present things as they weren't as fact.

Some snippets from the article:

BBC wrote:

[...] independent think tank Demos says that young people do not know how to navigate this information when it appears on the Internet. [...]

Pupils were asked to rate various sources of information - the government, Twitter, the Guardian newspaper, their family - according to how much they trusted it. The results were telling.

Closest to the heading 'Trust' the pupils placed YouTube; somewhere near the heading 'Distrust', they placed the government.

[...] with news surrounding the death of Osama Bin Laden. Pupils said that they had found evidence showing that he was not killed when it was reported that he had been. [...]

"I just believed the first answer that came up, to be honest. I know I shouldn't do it, but Google's like a trusted website; it's a lot of people's home page and you just automatically put trust in it."

Demos' report into digital literacy brings together existing research alongside a new survey of 500 teachers across England and Wales.

The report says that students did not verify sources, had poor understanding of how search engines work, and were not good at differentiating between propaganda and accurate information. [...]

'Revisionism'

[...] "A lot of the information on the internet is radical historical revisionism," said Jamie Bartlett.

"Without a common base of history that we all understand and accept and agree upon it's very hard for people to have a shared understanding of where we are now."

Lies posted online are something I'm sure most internet forum regulars are familiar with, but for young people in particular I think there is considerable danger of them being misled be extremist groups with their own agendas.

All About Slavery - Part II

See, a regularish update

Economics
The economic issue consistently raised by the Confederacy in succeeding from the Union was import tariffs. Tariffs intended to protect industry and non-commercial agriculture (the Republican platform for 1860 linked farmland and tariffs) predominating in the northern and mid-western states would have impacted on trade in southern states. The Nullification Crisis of 1832 shows how the issue had been a flashpoint in the past, and one which put certain states and the federal government at odds. So at face value, economic differences, and federal government policy on trade mattered much more than slavery.

What underlies this economic difference however was the plantation economy predominating in the south, and those plantations in turn mean slave labour. Of the four million slaves accounted for in 1860, three million worked in agriculture and two million of those were working farming cotton. In 1860 cotton represented 60% of American exports, to a value of about $200 million each year. We should also consider that the rising cost of slaves, partly resulting for the ban on the foreign slave trade, meant the slaves themselves were significant investments for their owners, often more valuable than the tools and machinery used on the plantation. While many small scale farmers in the south might not have been involved in the plantation economy, their own impact on their state’s economy (and governance) would have been dwarfed by their counterparts running plantations. Fears of a Slave Power were driven by the economic success of plantation agriculture, and similarly the Confederate hopes for King Cotton, or Cotton Diplomacy, were driven by their significance to the European cotton market.

This economic difference accounts to a great extent for the societal differences that can be observed between antebellum north and south, which has in past been claimed as a significant factor in the outbreak of war. Their different economy priorities drove different political policies. It also changed their social structure; the south ended up with a sort of class system, with the plantation owners, making vast sums of money on export, being at the top. Smaller southern farmers struggled to compete with plantation owners, being unable to achieve the economies of scale and lacking the starting funds to acquire slaves as cheap labour. Needless to say, the slaves ended up at the bottom of this class system.

Having established that the plantation owners had a vested interest in the maintenance of slavery for economic reasons, and that their economic power gave them greater power than their small numbers would suggest, we return to tariffs. Tariffs disproportionately affected foreign trade driven economies, but why was the south unable to industrialise and thus diversify like the north? After all a more diverse economy wouldn’t have left the southern states in such a serious position with the introduction of a tariff. Aside from the apparent economic incentive of the plantation, the slave workforce seems to be the obvious answer.

The southern population was relatively small, and experienced less immigration than northern states. Slaves in some states represented an overwhelming majority of the population. So if someone in going to work in the factories you might wish to build, it will probably have to be slaves (immigration might have upset the class system anyway). There are certain limitations on what slaves can achieve as workers. Their quality of education tends to be low; after all education would constitute an additional financial burden on their owner, who wanted slaves in the first place because they were cheaper. This makes their use in increasing sophisticated factory work limited (1). The fact that they were owned limited their mobility in the labour pool, since they cannot readily move from job to job as the requirements of the market dictate only where their owner moves or dictates. One could free slaves to release them into the free labour pool, but the owner manumitting them then loses the investment they represent without reimbursement (never mind the social impact). The control over labour that slavery represents would also have seemed very attractive bonus, a disincentive to using free labour.

So the costs and limitations involved in a slave-based economy limited development in the south, and in turn left the southern economy in a somewhat dire position when the status quo finally changed. Tariffs were an issue, but the system of slavery was the reason why the problem was so intractable, the south had no short term solution to the hardships it would cause.

The economics of the plantation economy and slavery also drove the previously raised issue of the desire to expand slavery into other territories. The filibusters, had they been successful in creating friendly slave states, would have opened new land for plantations and lowered the cost of acquiring slaves. Export driven monocultures and overplanting was also creating soil exhaustion, which in turn caused diminishing returns, so clearly new farmland was desirable. The westward growth of the Union opened up new land, but simply opening the land to agriculture would not have necessarily allowed plantation owners to bring their slave labourers with them. Hence slavery needed to be legal in the new states of the Union, which is how the in Bleeding Kansas conflict came about.

This economically driven expansion of slavery may have contributed to the growing militancy against slavery. As well as being a moral issue, some feared the United States would turn into a Slave Power, a threat to the freedom of its own citizens. This political activism created the free soil movement (which contributed to Lincoln’s later election) and to John Brown. John Brown started out fighting for abolition in Kansas, and later progressed to the raid on Harpers Ferry. Brown hoped to seize the armoury there to trigger and equip a slave revolt. This failed act of violence was an important watershed in the lead up to the Civil War, creating a perception that the institution of slavery was under armed attack. Actions like this raising tensions explain why no political compromise was possible, why a nation slid into a war.

A Quick Concluding Note
The Civil War was fought for a range of reasons, but underlying those reasons appears to be the practice of slavery. Slavery created political, economic and social pressures which created the stand-off. Reactions to slavery raised the tensions. Then all it took was for someone to fire a shot, and the war began.

But we should consider that while this is why institutions ended up fighting over slavery, it wasn’t why the soldiers fought. For example the Civil War had become so unpopular in New York that violent riots broke out. While ideologically driven soldiers are not unheard of, they are hardly the norm. The reality in the Civil War, and for most wars, in that people fought depending on where they lived. Even state-based loyalty might be too broad an explanation. Instead town and familial associations probably had more to do with who fought for whom. So in this respect, slavery didn’t have much to do with the fighting at all.

(1) Though the Tredegar Iron Works did end up with a workforce around 50% slave by way of contradiction, though as the link shows, there was still an eocnomic interest in maintaining that slave workforce

Further Links:
Stats and Commentary on the Economics of Slavery
A Paper on Post-Civil War Laws Effecting Labour Mobility

All About Slavery - Part I

Sorry for the delay in updates, been a bit preoccupied IRL. Part two to follow next week... anyway, on with the show:

Alexander Stephens wrote:

Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.

It has almost become trendy to find reasons for the American Civil War other than slavery. Tell some people it was all about slavery, and there will be much eye rolling and comments about the failures of education today or a rant about a conspiracy to punish the South after all these years. Common alternate reasons provided for the Civil War are states rights vs. the federal government or some variation on economics.

The ‘not slavery’ arguments raise one or more of the issues above while proving that many of the participants were not interesting in freeing the slaves. If you were to argue that the war started over federal government intent to free the slaves, while all Confederates were fighting to keep theirs, you really would be wrong. While some were concerned about slavery, they didn’t have an explicit plan to do so, and many would have been opposed to such a course of action. Some states with sided with the Union after all practiced slavery, and the Corwin Amendment, a last minute attempt at compromise, would have maintained the status quo of slavery in the states. Similarly the majority of Confederate soldiers would not have held slaves (on average, one in three families owned a slave though this varied quite a bit regionally), and thus had no direct stake in maintaining the system.

What this approach fails to do is dispel the role of slavery in the war beyond the simple issue of manumission. Slavery was more than a moral issue, and it underlies all the alternate explanations for the war.

The States Rights Argument
We’ll look at the economic component of states’ rights below, but let’s unpack the political notion of states’ rights as an explanation for the war. Exactly what right were the states trying to protect? The unavoidable answer is the institution of slavery. The fundamental existence and rightness of slavery was ensured in many Confederate states’ constitutions. You might also consider that the states that would form the Confederacy seemed to have been fine with federal government power when slave holding states had constituted a majority in Congress.

The Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court in 1857 for example took a more federal approach to the issue of slavery than state-by-state solution. Given that the flight of slaves to non-slave states posed a possible threat to the continuation of slavery, it seems obvious that a federal solution was needed. In effect, it was not enough for the federal government to leave the slave holding states alone, it had to intervene periodically to maintain it. So the threat of Abraham Lincoln’s election was of a federal government which would not grant any further concession to slave holders. The previously mentioned Corwin Amendment would only have maintained slavery within existing borders.

Slavery advocates had also not been particularly pro-states’ rights when it came to the matter of admitting new states to the Union. Kansas saw extensive conflict between pro-slave and anti-slave militias, generally outsiders whose primary motivation was to influence the decision as to whether Kansas would be a slave or non-slave state. Indeed some pro-slavery individuals went a step further and provided political and financial support to adventurers (called filibusters) whose intent was to take over a South or Central American country and (among other things) impose slavery there. Examples of this include William Walker (Nicaragua) and Narciso Lopez (Cuba). Thus for some, it wasn’t just a matter of maintaining slavery within a state, or even ensuring slavery existed within other states, but that slavery as an institution could be exported.

Links of Interest:
Confederate Constitution
Cuban Filibuster Movement (1849-1856)

Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited

By MB.

How was it that historical agents as thoroughly versed in history as the ExComm marched into a corner from which, as RFK observed, the chances were approximately 1 in 5 that the United States would become irreversibly pressured into fighting a thermonuclear war? This question is inherently one of deterrence theory. In short, Neustadt & Allison recognize that “if one nation is unwilling to risk waging (losing) a nuclear war, the opponent can potentially secure any objective by threatening to take the dispute to an unimaginable level of risk.” The contemporary reader will recognize these words as the conditions known colloquially as brinksmanship. It appears this was a question contemplated by the ExComm during the Crisis, particularly on October 18 when the president observed that:

McNamara & Blight, Wilson’s Ghost, p 47. Citing Neustadt & Allison, “Afterword,” in Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days, p 106. wrote:

Inasmuch as Soviet missiles are already pointed at the U.S., and U.S. missiles are pointed at the USSR-particularly those- the most obvious example is Turkey and Italy. In other words, what is the distinction between these missiles and the missiles which [sic] we sent to Turkey and Italy, which the Soviets put up with…?

Pursuing this question in 2001, citing Neustadt & Allison, McNamara related RFK’s concern regarding what “…if any, circumstance or justification gives this government or any government the moral right to bring its people and possibly all people under the shadow of nuclear devastation?” Harvard professor Henry Kissinger, who, writing shortly after the crisis, concluded that despite the limited risk of Soviet IRBM attack from Cuba, the US would have been foolish to have pursued policy commensurate with what biographer Walter Isaacson described as a “weak response” with respect to Cuba: Kissinger considered such a response unacceptable insofar as it would have damaged American / NATO credibility.
A series of conferences were held on the Crisis. McNamara recalled that at the third conference in January 1989:

McNamara & Blight, Wilson’s Ghost, p 189. wrote:

…it had became clear that the decisions of each of the three nations before, during, and after the crisis had been distorted by misinformation, miscalculation, and misjudgment…. But during a subsequent conference in Havana, in January 1992 – almost 30 years after the event – we learned that we had seriously underestimated those dangers. While in Havana, we were told by former Warsaw Pact chief of staff, General Anatoly Gribkov, that in 1962 the Soviet forces in Cuba possessed not only nuclear warheads for their intermediate-range missiles… but nuclear bombs and tactical nuclear warheads as well… [in 1962] the CIA was reporting no warheads on the island – they believed the first batch was to be delivered by a Russian ship named the Poltava…. In November 1992, we learned more. An article in the Russian press stated that, at the height of the missile crisis, Soviet forces on Cuba possessed a total of 162 nuclear warheads, including at least 90 tactical warheads. Moreover it was reported that, on October 26, 1962 – a moment of great tension – warheads were moved from their storage sites to positions closer to their delivery vehicles in anticipation of a U.S. invasion.

Deterrence theory: McNamara & Blight in 2001 quoted from Thomas Schelling’s seminal 1966 volume, Arms and Influence, regarding the nature of deterrence theory. Schelling identified “competition in risk-taking” as the underlying process determining modern nuclear power decision-making.

McNamara & Blight, Wilson’s Ghost, p 75. wrote:

Attempts at coercion, according to Schelling, now are principally “psychological”-- consisting of efforts to manipulate the risk of producing a crisis that might inadvertently, [sic] by a process that could not be foresee in detail, lead to nuclear war. Schelling speculated that perhaps the Great Power that was willing to tolerate greater risk of such a conflict would prevail in Great Power confrontations—that is, if a war was avoided…

It seems today that the Crisis is remembered as much for its harrowing crisis management, such as was dramatized in the recent movie adaptation of The Thirteen Days, starring Kevin Costner. Therein, the emphasis is placed almost entirely upon the internal machinations of the military-leadership in the ideological drive towards war. Contemporary movies, such as the action-adventure movie, X-Men: First Class, take this theme to its conclusion, pitting the denationalized evil-villains as war hawks, thus:

Conversation with http://www.politicsforum.org user Zagadka on http://www.irc.slashnet.org IRC chat channel < #pofo >, June 5, 2011. Reproduced with permission. wrote:

The Soviets order the freighter to turn around, but the bad guys are in control of it and keep going… After that, the fighting starts, the US and Soviets work together [!] to target the mutants while they are fighting… The plot of the movie is that basically the bad guys are trying to start WWIII…

In this case the cataclysmic war is only prevented by the intervention of super-heroes, suggesting the inexorable nature of the historical march towards war. The element of Soviet-American cooperation transcending historical realities to prevent violence is perhaps the ultimate expression of lesson of the Crisis.
Disarmament: Hugh Miall, Director of the Conflict Analysis Research Centre at the University of Kent wrote that the singular lesson of the Crisis was the potential for deterrence theory falter at the critical moment.
McNamara’s thoughts on disarmament:

McNamara & Blight, Wilson’s Ghost, p 188. wrote:

In a deep crisis, things often spin out of control, and, no matter what started the crisis, it is the very existence of the nuclear weapons themselves- the possibility they will be used and that the conflict will escalate- that becomes the biggest threat. I believe the Cuban missile crisis showed that nothing short of the elimination of nuclear weapons can change this. Nothing short of elimination, therefore, is morally defensible.

Consider Greg Ruggiero’s words in the foreword to Howard Zinn’s final book The Bomb, concerning the Obama administration’s ‘Nuclear Posture Review’ of 2010:

Ruggiero, “Acts of Rebellion, Large and Small,” in Zinn, The Bomb, p 13. wrote:

Along with declaring plans for limited reduction of aging nuclear weapons and making vague reference to their eventual elimination at some unspecified time beyond his term of office, the commander-in-chief’s announcement clearly reasserts the U.S. military plan to possess and potentially use nuclear weapons against the populations of other countries.

After Dunkirk – An Odd Narrative Twist of WWII

The orthodox overview of WWII follows a basic line where the Battle of France is lost and the audience is transported over the Channel to Britain. The Battle of France is lost by Dunkirk, and nothing further is said. The narrative then turns to the Battle of Britain, a possible Operation Sealion (the planned invasion of England) and all the ‘what ifs’ that follow from that. But there is a bit of a problem here: the Battle of France continued for nearly another month after the Dunkirk evacuations. France didn’t surrender until the 25th of June, and Dunkirk seems to have wrapped up around the 3rd. It is a genuine struggle to find detailed materials about the later part of the campaign in France, while narratives of the start are exceedingly common.

The standard narrative of WWII focuses at the start on a bewildering series of defeats inflicted by the Axis. Indeed the standard narrative of the lead up to WWII starts with annexations, one after another. First one country goes and then another is soon under threat. What is odd is that the narrative of the defeat of France doesn’t actually come to its natural conclusion in this string of defeats.

Why is this? The first likely answer seems to be that France’s defeat was inevitable, and in a sense this is true. By the time of the Dunkirk evacuation the British Expeditionary Force was in a decidedly awkward strategic situation. Some of France’s best divisions similarly found themselves cut off. The general losses incurred by France at the opening of the campaign had left them stretched dangerously thin, with no reserves and a crisis of morale in government. There wasn’t any conceivable way at that point that the defeat of France could have been avoided, there was no bold master stroke or stratagem possible. One gets the same feeling from the narrative of the invasion of Poland, the narrative notes Western support would never arrive, so Poland falls without further elaboration.

This is never the less, an unusual way to think about a war. Inevitability shouldn’t void a desire to understand what happened. It might be that events were not in fact inevitable or so simple, but we simply believe them to be for lack of better understanding. It might not have been big History, but our recording of it shouldn’t be so barren. I can’t help but wonder if the popular debate about why France was defeated might not be more easily resolved if we all bothered to learn more about the campaign in its entirety.

Perhaps it is the lack of clear points of decision after Dunkirk. The narrative of German advances after Dunkirk doesn’t seem to be interrupted by any noted acts of resistance. The exception to this is the narrative of the Maginot Line defences, attacks named Tiger and Kleiner Bar by the Germans, which has seen a relatively recent resurgence in interest. This isn’t to say that the fighting didn’t continue, but that without a clear battle or point of focus any attempt at building a narrative loses clarity.

Incidentally the only other operations that stand out with a bit of digging are actually further evacuations in the form of Operations Cycle (starting 10/06/40 from Le Havre) and Ariel (starting 15/06/40 in western France). These subsequent operations to Dunkirk upset the standard narrative that British involvement in the Battle of France completely ended with Dunkirk.

Another possibility is effectively that of propaganda. By shifting the narrative to the Battle of Britain, and perhaps from a French perspective the continued struggles of Free French forces, we move from a string of defeats to the first victories. The series of defeats is then recast with a singular act of defiance and victory against all odds. Earlier defeats only make the victory all the more notable. Being reminded of the very concrete mechanics of defeat in France doesn’t suit this style of story. The creation of Vichy France serves to provide an enemy or sorts, but dwelling on its creation might pose some difficult questions. In considering whether this is still the case, I would like to hope we can move on from such an approach and remember that the history of war isn’t supposed to be just about the winners.

The final possibility is that it’s all a bit of a British-centric view of WWII. In this narrative after the Battle of Britain comes the North African campaign, Italy and finally the return to Europe with D-Day. There might be fighting on the Eastern Front, but it’s all a bit vague (1). In effect the sooner France and other countries are out of the way, the sooner we can focus on Britain and the Commonwealth forces. As I hinted above, there is of course a French version of this, where the focus is on the Free French and the resistance partisans back in France where old France might be defeated by new France was waiting in the wings.

Wrapping it up, none of this is to say that we need to stop publishing certain views of history in favour of something different or as part of some crusade for Correct History. You tend to get a certain view of history for what are essentially rational reasons, it isn’t necessarily a conspiracy to write certain events out of common memory. I write this piece more to make people stop and think about what in history they take for granted and how what seems obvious can obscure other stories, other interests.

(1) Following from the point raised above, the limited narrative approach to the Eastern Front is typified by broad campaigns punctuated with battles over fixed, reasonably well known places (Leningrad, Moscow and to a lesser extent Stalingrad). This has partly lead to what David Glantz calls ‘forgotten battles’, whole campaigns on other parts of the Eastern Front that the West were perhaps unaware of, and defeats (or dubious victories) the Soviet Union wasn’t always keen to promote… sorry, I’m trying not to write about Soviet history… honest.

Alternate Histories: The Good and the Bad

Alternate Histories: The Good and the Bad

A favourite exercise in the discourse of history, be that on an online forum, a book or chatting over a glass of beer, is to talk about what might have been. Alternate history or counter-factuals (or more informally a ‘what if…’), inspires some and irritates others. So let’s consider both sides of the genre.

A clear positive feature of alternative history is as a form of entertainment. History is often an exercise in telling interesting stories, and an alteration of one of those tales gives you an opportunity to change events, actors and endings. It can also be a relatively intellectual form of entertainment as a sort of thought exercise, to consider a change and to logically try to figure out how it all could have turned out differently.

I’ve always thought one way that an alternative history was an interesting focus was the way it allows you to better appreciate the ‘components’ of history. Consider for example whether you believe that history is shaped by individuals or vast impersonal forces (economics, cultural mores etc.). Why not hypothesise what it would have happened without a significant actor or alternatively what it would have taken to re-shape those broad forces. By changing ‘what was’ you might be able to see how other factors which are overshadowed might be important or even just a historic curiosity.

Where alternate history gets a poor reputation is its common lack of academic rigour. Given the common motivation is entertainment, this result is not unexpected. Changes rendered by impossible forces or perhaps more importantly results which are freakishly unlikely strain reasonable suspensions of disbelief and tend to distract from the cerebral benefits of counter-factuals.

Following from this, is an apparent trend where alternate history is used simply for wish fulfilment. This wish fulfilment aspect can kick in as soon as the author starts to craft their alternate history: is the alternative being considered out of curiosity and for entertainment, or is it more base escapism to create a world which is somehow more desirable? The previously suggested failure of an alternate history by way of unlikely outcomes can be the product of the narrative following the author’s wishes rather than a simple mistake. In a way alternative history as wish fulfilment belongs to the same category as harkening back to a (often itself imagined) glorious past.

I suppose one way of putting it is that entertainment is one thing… but it almost seems unfair to group it with history. As I suggested in my first blog post on this site, I consider history to be most valid when the author attempted, to the best of their ability, to approach the material in a scientific fashion. Perhaps the happy medium between the best and worst would be a clearer distinction between ‘serious’ and ‘indulgent’ what ifs?

Post your thoughts, or failing at tell us about your most loved and hated alternate histories.

Alternative Visions to the World Wide Web (part II)

By Smilin' Dave

Sorry for the delay in part II... technical issues.

PART II – THE SOVIET EXPERIMENT

The next case study comes from a country and system which emerged in the 20th Century seemingly to challenge everything taken for granted: The Soviet Union. On the other hand like so many ideas born in the Soviet Union, this one never really met its full potential.

Soviet plans and concepts for a national network of computers tended to be shaped by the prevailing visions of the party-state (a monopoly of its own kind. Both conceptions for a Soviet computer network saw the system as a tool to manage and improve the economy, rather than to disseminate information or provide consumer services.

The first pitch for a network came in October 1956 from Isaak Bruk, who proposed a "hierarchical network of 'control machines' to collect, transmit and process economic data and to facilitate decision-making by computer simulation." By January 1959 Anatolii Kitov elaborated on this concept by calling for a series of regional data processing centres receiving input from enterprises and providing output to the relevant agencies. The intent of this network of processing centres was to reduce the time taken to collect/process data thus releasing labour from bureaucratic functions and to improve the allocation of resources (raw materials, labour and transport etc.) at the local and national level. Some of the more radical cyberneticists even suggested ‘expert systems’ would come to process this data and effectively make decisions better than the enterprise managers. In 1962 Aleksandr Kharkevich proposed that all communications in the Soviet Union (telephone, radio, telegraph etc.) should be encoded digitally and distributed by the network. This comes closer to the Web’s vision as a system for communication, rather than management of the economy.

There were some even more radical concepts proposed. One was that the regional processing centres could be a resource shared between civilian and military sectors, which would naturally require the processing centres to be placed in bunkers underground. The military rejected this and continued to build their own integrated defence networks, which had been conceived and started deployment from the mid-1950s also. In 1963 Viktor Glushkov suggested that such a system could lead to the abolition of paper money thanks to its efficiency in allocating resources.

The regional model envisaged mirrored Khrushchev’s own policy of regional economic organisation and development, coordinated by regional organisations called Sovnarkhozy. Like the Sovnarkhoz, the project seems to have become unstuck trying to figure just how the enterprises, regions and centre would interact with each other. Glushkov’s claim to eliminate money was probably configured to appeal to Khrushchev’s stated desire to achieve full Communism in twenty years as of 1961.

With the fall of Khrushchev enters Brezhnev. Brezhnev and his associates would draw heavily on the idea of science and expert decision making as a solution to the slowing economy. Naturally, computers were to play a big part in this but the regional processing centre like the Sovnarkhoz was to be abandoned. With the end of the Sovnarkhoz the ministries, each dominating a broad industrial sector, were re-establishing their dominance. So this time the national network of computers was to be structured to mirror the ministerial system of operation. The network would go from the enterprise, through to the glavki/branch managing that specific sector, to the central ministry in Moscow, who would pass the information on to the central planning organs.

The first example of this was built for the Ministry of Instrument Building, for the Means of Automation and Control Systems (Minipribor), which itself oversaw the production of computer equipment. The system was to be called ASU-pribor, and work started in 1966. By 1970 it was estimated nineteen such systems were in operation, but on the other hand it was also claimed the plan was for 28 such systems. By 1971 the Central Committee had to approve guidelines delineating authority in these projects and broad goals to be achieved. On the upside Minpribor noted the introduction of ASU-pribor reduced the number of forms needed for collecting data from 1,174 to 123.

Just as the networks tended to reflect the system they were supposed to serve, they also tended to reflect their flaws. So the ministerial networks ran into problems first because they could not talk to each other. Not only did the infrastructure exclude horizontal linkages, the systems were apparently built in house, so their software/hardware weren’t necessarily compatible with each other. Even within a network there could be incompatibilities, ASU-pribor received input data from teletype machines, telegraph and ‘group information points’ depending on the enterprise in question. In effect, this series of networks was never centralised or planned, contrary to its Soviet origins! This hampered information sharing, and simply cemented the old system in place rather than reformed what had previously proven to be a problematic approach.

http://www.amazon.com/Newspeak-Cyberspe ... 215&sr=8-1

http://web.mit.edu/slava/homepage/artic ... erNyet.pdf

Martin Cave, Computers and Economic Planning: The Soviet Experience, University of Cambridge, 1980

Alternative Visions to the World Wide Web (part I)

By Smilin' dave.

Viewing this blog through infrastructure inspired by a RAND corporaton study and catalogued along principles laid down by Tim Berners-Lee, you've probably taken the World Wide Web for granted to some extent. One of the interesting things about looking at our history is to see what might have been, and perhaps also how far we have come. This series of articles will be about alternative visions and projects for large computer networks (to be technical, Wide Area Networks) and how they differ from the Web you know and (presumably?) love. As a bit of a easter egg, the majority of this research was done online, so the sources where possible have been linked, others are available via Google Books. The one 'dead tree' book I've used you can purchase online from Amazon.

PART I – EUROPE: PRESTEL AND MINITEL

Prestel was made commercially available in 1979 by British Post/Telecom. The decoder for the Prestel service was attached to the phone line, though this often required an engineer to install the specialist connection ports etc. Users accessed databases/pages (which could have sub-pages) and functions by punching in numeric codes either from instructions or as displayed on the screen. The original plan was for set-top boxes or specialised televisions but there was poor uptake due to high costs. In an era where people access the internet on their televisions through a variety of means, the novelty of accessing an information network in the lounge room is probably hard to imagine. Home computing proved to be a more popular market, but the cost of installation and access still seem to have been a significant barrier.

Companies could rent a set amount of database space from the postal/phone service in order to provide content. This could then be portioned up and rented to smaller operators. In keeping with the issues with cost at the user end, the initial buy in costs for companies to access Prestel (both to access the service and the hardware) were fairly significant.

Minitel started off in France in the early 1980s as an extension of the services provided by PTT (Poste, Telephone et Telecommunications), the national phone and postal service. Millions of terminals linked into this system were given out for free. Minitel, unlike Prestel, aimed to make its money through provision of services and subscriptions, rather than with the initial purchase cost. The primary application was a free ‘white pages’ phone listing. The gamble being it would be cheaper to hand out computers with access to an electronic updatable phone book than to issue a new one every year. One wonders if the advertising revenue for the old paper-based ‘yellow pages’ phone book was a disincentive to digitise it?

Both Prestel and Minitel offered a range of other services, like the ability to purchase mail order items, book tickets on transport services and of course being the internet, there was pornography. Just as today’s advertisements often carry Web addresses, French ads started appearing with Minitel numbers. This principle of a computer network focused on the provision of services differs from the early internet/World Wide Web, which was started as a means of communication. Messaging applications were in fact provided by Prestel and Minitel, however Prestel didn’t implement a mail system till 1983, and Minitel first discovered chat rooms when it was found users were logging into a Battleship-type game only to use the internal chat function.

At the users end, Prestel and Minitel differed from the Web you know today in a few ways. The terminals were, compared to your home computer, ‘dumb’, with limited processing power and no programs of its own. The services and programs provided were entirely run at the server end. The network itself was comparatively closed, probably a result of the relevant companies’ monopoly on network infrastructure (though there are references to Minitel terminals being cloned and made available on the open market). The closed network was something of an advantage for transactions involving money, as it was less likely your credit card details would pass through somewhere you rather it wouldn’t.

Prestel on the other hand did have a famous breach of security, were ‘hackers’ obtained a username and password from a Prestel engineer by reading over his shoulder. The users were subsequently able to access a number of private areas of the network, including Prince Phillip’s messaging account. This incident lead to the creation of the Computer Misuse Act of 1990 (see below).

Prestel and Minitel were national network services, but their adoption in a number of other countries gave this closed network something of an international element. So rather than a vast network you have a series of independent networks, working on similar principles. However the specific conditions that made Minitel such a success in France (centralising technocratic government and a telecommunications monopoly) don’t seem to have been readily repeatable in other nations, leading to lesser success elsewhere.

Next Week - The Soviet Experiment

Sources
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prestel
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Misuse_Act_1990
- http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/ ... restel.php
- http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/carlson/History/Prestel.htm

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3012769.stm
- http://www.forbes.com/2003/07/14/cx_al_ ... er=newscom
- Khateeb M. Hussain, Donna Hussain, Telecommunications and Networks, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1997
- Gillies & Cailliau, How the Web Was Born, Oxford University Press, 2000

Book Review: The Gun by C. J. Chivers

By Smilin' dave.

The best way to describe this book that I can think of is a socio-political history of the Kalashnikov series of assault rifles. The narrative sets the context of the machine gun by starting with Richard Gatling's invention of the Gatling Gun (with reference to contemporary weapons) though the 20th Century, then ending in the post Soviet era of weapons proliferation. While there is a fair bit of technical detail, it isn't included for its own sake but to emphasise key points. So the parts and operation of the AK is explained, but this is to help us understand the debate about who is responsible for its invention.

The focus of the book isn't about weapons, as I suggested at the start it's more about the social and political factors in its creation, production and proliferation. So Chivers doesn't just tell you about the Gatling Gun, he emphasises the hopes of its inventor who publicly stated he thought a weapon that could create the firepower of a regiment would replace that regiment with a few weapon operators, thus saving lives. He talks about Gatling's desperate (and sometimes dodgy) business venture. Naturally this goes into the story of the machine gun and its acceptance, or lack thereof, by militaries around the world. Enter Hiram Maxim, a man apparently uninterested in his weapon beyond its profit making potential and perhaps a certain amount of self-aggrandisement. Mikhail Kalashnikov appears of course, but so does a discussion of the system of 'socialist competition' which shaped his design (as naturally does the production complex which would result in it becoming so common).

Something else I thought notable about the book was that for a weapon about guns, it certainly isn't very gung-ho about their usage. Chivers tends to use examples where the people being shot with these weapons are, for want of a better word, victims. Be it the hopelessly under equipped Mahdi army member, the young man shot and left to die trying to cross the Berlin Wall or the Kurdish bodyguard whose body was effectively destroyed by the AK. I'll also repeat what a lot of other reviews have already noted: the book also goes against the myth that the AK was a weapon of liberation, of people power. Instead the methods of its proliferation and production tended to make it a weapon better suited to state repression. Failing that, with the collapse of socialist countries and other factors, you have a weapon that found its way into the hands of some very nasty groups like the Lord's Resistance Army.

The only bad thing I will say about the book is the second last chapter, which discusses the introduction and early problems with the M-16, doesn't quite fit. Now, introducing the M-16 into the narrative serves a useful purpose as a comparison with the AK-47. However the chapter is almost self contained, and somewhat disrupts the (to that point) fairly linear narrative. It was a very interesting and informative chapter, but it disrupted the flow.

Over all, I would say that The Gun was a good read with a lot of depth showing depth of research and a sharp authorial mind.

On a semi-related note, is anyone familiar with a text called The Social History of the Machine Gun by John Ellis?