Diagnosis of Rebellion:
SEARS, RICHARD
Diagnosis of Rebellion The Rebels. By Brian Crozier. Beacon. 248 pp. $3.95. Reviewed by Richard Sears Former foreign service officer; Former deputy political advisor, RFE Any book which...
...The first part of the book is predominantly a collection of rebel profiles in which the chronology of individual rebels' lives is intertwined with that of the conditions and events giving them cause for revolt...
...This amounts to a general plea for intelligence, wisdom, foresight and a liberal spirit in government with which one cannot help but concur...
...Hastings Banda of Nyasaland stand out in this gallery perhaps because the men in question are exotic types in our experience but also because the picture given of them is more vivid than the others...
...These rebellions are chosen according to the categories: anti-colonial (anti-British and antiFrench), post-colonial, Communistinspired, and anti-Communist (also anti-colonial...
...Crozier concludes from these two models that a combination of military toughness and political and social progress is the proper formula once rebellion has started...
...Former deputy political advisor, RFE Any book which discusses 15 or more rebellions of the years between 1945 and 1959 is bound to deal with the major political issues of the era...
...This is especially true when, as in Brian Crozier's book, the rebellions are carefully selected...
...A hopeful judgment and possibly a salutary reminder is that "though the communists, since the war, have shown themselves the most accomplished suppressors of revolts, they have also displayed a remarkable ineptitude for revolution—their own chosen stock-in-trade...
...The main body of the book, after first identifying official errors leading to rebellion and three phases of rebellion itself, proceeds to illustrate the sequence and interplay of rebellions in specific instances...
...Because this is not a handbook for revolution but a guide for authority in liquidating and avoiding it, two models are chosen for proper handling of revolt by government...
...One cites the example of Sir Gerald Templer in Malaya and the other of Ramon Magsaysay and the Hukbalahups in the Philippines...
...Chapters are devoted to rebel terrorism—successful and unsuccessful—and repression—absolute and "sensible," that is to say, modified by appropriate political and social reform...
...It does seem, however, to be little more than an expression of pious hope that this combination will be applied in the near future in the USSR, and present events in Africa do not inspire great confidence that it will be the rule in the new African nations where more than one primary community is represented...
...For, improbable as it may seem, the list is not all-inclusive...
...In his postlude, "A Glimpse of Sanity," the author comes out firmly for prevention as better than the cure of rebellion and he cites the case of India, Burma, Ceylon, Morocco and Tunisia in evidence...
...One more plea to them for high principle can, of course, do no harm...
...Although Crozier is conscientiously fair in recounting the facts of rebellion and discriminates neither on the side of the rebels nor their opponents, he addresses himself primarily to the latter in an attempt to guide ruling governments toward policies which will avoid armed conflict...
...Whether the older colonial powers will find the right prescription for peaceful evolution in the regions remaining under their control is a matter of particular situation, action and timing...
...The descriptions of Jomo Kenyatta, the Mau Mau leader, and of Dr...
...As a general rule one would prefer a less schematic treatment of rebel personality especially since a basic element of Crozier's theory is that rebellions require particular kinds of rebellious personalities to make them...
...The book is not, however, intended as a history of postwar revolt nor even as a catalogue of the most important rebellions, but rather as an inquiry into the nature, prevention and cure of rebellions in general, with particular attention to the personalities of rebel leaders and to the techniques of rebellion and suppression...
...Less reassuring is Crezier's suggestion for Communist imperialist policy: "To relax is fatal," or in the same context: "In the long run, pure repression (as in Hungary and Berlin) cannot succeed...
Vol. 44 • January 1961 • No. 1
