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Distinguishing Classical Tyrannicide from Modern Terrorism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

David George
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Extract

Tyrannicide has traditionally been distinguished from political assassination in terms of the difference between public and private life. Tyrannicide was a self-sacrificing act for public benefit (and so morally esteemed); common assassination, its opposite, namely, a self-serving act for private gain (and correspondingly censured). Terrorist assassinations, though similarly condemned, raise a special problem since they purport to be self-denying acts for the public good. It is argued that a satisfactory distinction between them and tyrannicide cannot be drawn on the basis of historical or behavioral criteria alone, and consequently a supplementary “teleological” criterion is required. This leads to a consideration of the “classical” and “ideological” styles of politics as the respective contexts of tyrannicide and terrorism. In context, terrorism and tyrannicide can be seen as not only categorically different but also antithetical kinds of political violence. Terrorism, in short, is a form of tyranny of which tyrannicide is a negation.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , Summer 1988 , pp. 390 - 419
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1988

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References

Notes

1. Almost certainly the earliest example was the projected Legion of Brutus, (12 1790)Google Scholar, whose members were intended to assassinate the crowned heads of state in Europe. One of the very few to enlist in this “sacred battalion of tyrannicides” was the ex-Capuchin and ultra sans-culotte, Chabot. He also “proposed that every citizen should be armed, in order that each man might kill any counterrevolutionaries he chose” (Lenôtre, G., A Gascon Royalist in Revolutionary Paris: The Baron de Batz, 1792–1795 [London: Heinemann, 1910], p. 30).Google Scholar

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27. Hence arms can be taken up legitimately against modern tyranny which is “not tyranny personified by some individual, but tyranny institutionalised in a particular social system,” according to Fierro, A., The Militant Gospel: An Analysis of Contemporary Political Theologies, trans. Drury, J. (London: SCM Press, 1977), p. 203.Google Scholar

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29. Theologians, Kairos, The Kairos Document: A Theological Comment on the Political Crisis in South Africa (London: British Council of Churches, 1986), §4. 3.Google Scholar The possibility of tyranny today is presupposed in, Paul VI, Populorum Progressio 31: AAS 59 (1967), pp. 272–73.Google Scholar

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32. Wilkinson, P., “Trends in International Terrorism and the American Response,” in Terrorism and International Order, ed. Freeman, L. et al. , (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1986), p. 37. On p. 54Google Scholar, Wilkinson cites Schmid, A. P., Political Terrorism: A Research Guide to Concepts, Theories, Data Bases and Literature (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., 1983), pp. 5–159Google Scholar, for evidence of a broad consensus in academic usage. Also, Jenkins, B. M., “The Study of Terrorism: Definitional Problems,” in Behavioral and Quantitative Perspectives on Terrorism, ed. Alexander, Y. and Gleason, J. M. (New York: Pergamon Press, 1981), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

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34. The career of the French group, Action Directe, between 1984 and 1985 provides several examples of this expressivist form of terrorism. See Hamon, A. and Marchand, J-C., Action Directe: Du Terrorisme Français à l'Euroterrorisme (Paris: Seuil, 1986), pp. 126–37.Google Scholar

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36. Schmid, , Political Terrorism, p. 61.Google Scholar Also Rapoport, and Alexander, , Morality and Terrorism, pp. 220–21.Google Scholar

37. Cf. Rapoport, D. C., Assassination and Terrorism (Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting System, 1971), pp. 37–38, 45, 49.Google Scholar

38. Wilkinson, , Political Terrorism, p. 17.Google Scholar

39. Crick, , “Reflection on Tyrannicide,” p. 233.Google ScholarPaust, J. J., “‘Nonprotected’ Persons or Things,” in Legal Aspects of International Terrorism, ed. Evans, A. E. and Murphy, J. P. (Lexington: D. C. Heath & Co., 1978), p. 359.Google Scholar

40. Hiero VII, 10.Google Scholar

41. Lives. Aratus is replete with examples. See also Timoleon (Timophanes), Theseus (Menetheus), Dion (Callipus) and Romulus (Amulius).

42. Rapoport, , Assassination, pp. 37–38.Google Scholar

43. Wilkinson, , Political Terrorism, pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

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45. Wilkinson, , Political Terrorism, p. 19.Google Scholar

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48. Crick, , “Reflection on Tyrannicide,” p. 229Google Scholar. Mariana evidently thought so, Mariana, , De Rege.Google Scholar

49. E.g., Carlile, R. in The Republican, 9 06 1820Google Scholar, for the Cato St. conspiracy (1820). For the Orsini, AttentatGoogle Scholar, see Adams, W. E., Tyrannicide: Is It Justifiable? (London, 1858).Google Scholar

50. Fierro, , Militant Gospel, p. 203.Google Scholar

51. Wilkinson, , Political Terrorism, p. 17.Google Scholar

52. “Même dans la destruction, il y a un ordre, il y a des limites,” (Camus, A., Les Justes [Paris: Gallimard, 1950], p. 73).Google Scholar

53. Camus, A., “Les meurtriers delicats,” in L'Homme Révolté (Paris: Gallimard, 1951), pp. 206–216Google Scholar. Similar claims have been made for the Jewish terrorist group, the Stern Gang. See, Iviansky, Z., “Lechi's share in the struggle for Israel's liberation,” in Terrorists or Freedom Fighters, ed. Tavin, E. and Alexander, Y. (Fairfax: Hero Books, 1986), pp. 75–77Google Scholar. Jenkins, B. M. argues terrorists can be either indiscriminate or highly selective, “International Terrorism: A New Mode of Conflict,” in International Terrorism and World Security, ed. Carlton, D. and Schaerf, C. (London: Croom Helm, 1975), pp. 19–20Google Scholar. Gross, F. distinguishes degrees of indiscriminacy within terrorism in Violence in Politics: Terror and Political Assassination in Eastern Europe and Russia (The Hague: Mouton, 1972), pp. 18–19.Google Scholar

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55. Yarmolinsky, A., Road to Revolution: A Century of Russian Radicalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), p. 240.Google Scholar

56. Ibid., p. 257; and Offord, D., The Russian Revolutionary Movement in the 1880's (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 25, 28Google Scholar. In the view of his assassins the czar was a tyrant, but this is dubious. He was no usurper, but a legitimist monarch, whom pious subjects believed to rule by God's Grace. Nor were his notably liberal reforms the marks of tyranny by oppression. There was nothing violent or lawless about their introduction, and they were palpably for the public good, not for his private benefit. Two reforms were especially noteworthy: bringing the judicial system into line with the best current European practices (including separation of the judiciary from executive power); and introducing local self-government in 1861, followed by moves at national level toward a representative system of government (the Loris-Melikov “constitution”). As for the stern measures taken to repress the campaign of assassination, they followed due process of law. So if Alexander was still deemed a tyrant, it was probably on account of the autocratic nature of his power. But that would be only to confuse absolute sovereignty in a Rechtsstaat with tyranny; the czar was no more a tyrant than the sovereign power in Hobbes's Leviathan.

57. Offord, , Russian Revolutionary Movement, pp. 28–29.Google Scholar

58. Ibid., p. 20; and Venturi, , Roots of Revolution, p. 681.Google Scholar

59. Ulam, , Name of the People, pp. 131–38 et seq.Google Scholar

60. Aristotle, Politics 1267a15.Google Scholar

61. Mill, , On LibertyGoogle Scholar. Mill treated tyrannicide exclusively in terms of its punitive aspect, neglecting its defensive and emancipatory facets.

62. Buchanan, G., De Iure Regni apud Scotos (Edinburgh, 1579), pp. 51–53.Google Scholar

63. Ibid., p. 85.

64. Ibid.

65. Ibid., p. 56.

66. Ibid.

67. Locke, , Second Treatise of Government (1680), 2, sec. 2.Google Scholar

68. Buchanan, , De Iure Regni, p. 97.Google Scholar

69. Ibid, p. 56.

70. Jaszi, O. and Lewis, J. D., Against the Tyrant: The Tradition and Theory of Tyrannicide (Glencoe: Free Press, 1957), p. 91.Google Scholar

71. Schmid, , Political Terrorism, pp. 97–99.Google Scholar

72. Berlin, I., “Russian Populism,” in Russian Thinkers, ed. Hardy, H. and Kelly, A. (Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, 1979), pp. 210–37Google Scholar. Ulam describes their goal as a “dreamlike vision of an instant egalitarian paradise to follow the revolution” (Name of the People, p. 99).Google Scholar

73. Venturi, , Roots of Revolution, p. 676.Google Scholar

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75. Civil liberties listed in the 1880 program of Narodnaya Volya, for example, were intended as a provisional measure, hence lacking in power to bind a future popular assembly (von Borcke, , “Violence and Terror in Russian Revolutionary Populism,” p. 59)Google Scholar. Their instrumental nature, “a prerequisite for the resumption of effective propaganda among the peasantry,” is brought out by Ofiord, , Russian Revolutionary Movement, p. 29Google Scholar; and by Hardy, D., Land and Freedom: The Origins of Russian Terrorism, 1876–1879 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), pp. 132, 142–43.Google Scholar

76. Von Borcke, , “Violence and Terror in Russian Revolutionary Populism,” p. 59.Google Scholar

77. Venturi, , Roots of Revolution, p. 677Google Scholar. A new Napoleon to complete the sequence was even envisaged by Mikhailovsky: “The Russian popular uprising may produce an ambitious man of genius, a Caesar, a demigod, before whom our unhappy country will bow its head” (quoted in Yarmolinsky, , Road to Revolution, p. 241).Google Scholar

78. Offord, , Russian Revolutionary Movement, pp. 46–51.Google Scholar

79. Laqueur, , Age of Terrorism, p. 38.Google Scholar

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82. Noel O'Sullivan's account of the limited and activist styles of politics has been particularly helpful in clarifying the ideas in this paragraph. See. O'Sullivan, N. K., “Revolution and Modernity,” in Revolutionary Theory and Political Reality, ed. O'Sullivan, N. K. (Brighton: Harvester Press, 1983), pp. 9–18Google Scholar; and Fascism (London: Dent, 1983), pp. 34–39.Google Scholar

83. Both prosecuting and defense counsel at Orsini's trial took this view, Gazette des Tribinaux: Journal de Jurisprudence et des Débats Judiciaires (Année 33), 26fev., 1858Google Scholar. Also Napoleon III, see fn.3 above. The Times, 16 01 1858Google Scholar, noted, “the ruffians of the Rue Lepelletier have done a work which will have far other results than the heroism of Scaevola or Brutus.”

84. Wilkinson, P., Terrorism and the Liberal State, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1987), p. 95.Google Scholar

85. Mazzini, J., The Duties of Man and Other Essays (London, 1907), pp. 56–57.Google Scholar

86. Ibid., p. xiv.

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88. Orsini, F., Memoirs and Adventures (London, 1857), p. 134.Google Scholar

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90. Ibid., p. 190.

91. Gazette des Tribinaux.

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93. Packe, M. StJ., The Bombs of Orsini (London: Seeker and Warburg, 1957), p. 250Google Scholar. The program also included the “Muette di Portici” about the Naples insurrection of 1547. Details of the dead and wounded in Dansette, A., L'Attentat D'Orsini (Paris: Ed. Mondiale, , 1964), p. 18.Google Scholar

94. Pyat, F., TalandierBesson, A. Besson, A., Letter to the Parliament and the Press, 2nd ed. (London, 1858), pp. 7–15Google Scholar; and Mazzini, J., Letter to Louis Napoleon, (London, 1858)Google Scholar, passim.

95. Contra: Lewis, B., “The Assassins, an Historical Essay,” Encounter 19 (11 1967): 43Google Scholar; and, The Assassins: A Radical Sect in Islam (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1967), pp. 125–26Google Scholar. Also, Cotton, J., “Chinese Political Thought,” in Blackwell's Encyclopedia of Political Thought, ed. Miller, D. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), p. 63Google Scholar. Lewis represents tyrannicide as, “the religious obligation to rid the world of an unrighteous ruler …” (“The Assassins,” p. 43)Google Scholar. Both President Sadat and Mrs. Gandhi may have seemed unrighteous to their respective assassins. Even if they were so, their murders would still be acts of terrorism: in Sadat's case simply because of the complete lack of a formal, constitutional end; in that of Mrs. Gandhi, because constitutional checks existed in India, and were effective. Tyrannicide, an extraconstitutional means of checking tyranny, presupposes the absence of such effective constraints. Both sets of assassins had substantive religious ends; one was vengeance for the alleged sacrilege of storming the Golden Temple, the other was to uphold what was regarded as the cause of Islam.

Cotton claims Mencius (alone) justified tyrannicide. In his typically cryptic and elusive saying at LB.8. (Works), Mencius supported the deposition and slaying of an unjust, oppressive ruler, one who “mutilates benevolence” and “cripples Tightness,” by a subject. If such a despot who forfeits the Mandate of Heaven by his actions is deemed a tyrant, then his death at the hands of a subject (in this case a minister) was, literally, tyrannicide. But in the absence of a restoration or inauguration of limited government and constitutionalism, this was not a tyrannicide in the Occidental sense.

96. Contra: Laqueur, , “terrorism is a priori possible at any time, and everywhere, or, to be precise, in all free, or semi-free societies” (Terrorism, p. 5).Google Scholar