A very short history of modern ‘terrorism’

In light of all the hyperbole over the recent attacks in Paris, it may be worthwhile to remind ourselves of the modern history of ‘terrorism’. To begin with, it was the favoured mode of the radical Anabaptist groups in the sixteenth century. In the wake of the Münster Revolution of 1534-35, the most radical part of Europe at the time was the northern Netherlands, especially in the areas of Friesland and Groningen. Here squads of some hundreds engaged in systematic ‘terrorism’, including arson, destruction, large-scale killings of ‘infidels’ and so forth. Their leaders were a colourful lot, including Jan van Batenburg, Cornelis Appelman, and Johan Willemsz. Crucially, this was a Christian development in the radical north. Soon enough, the area would become home to staunch Calvinists.

A second moment appears with some anarchist elements in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. They were keen to make an impact and spread uncertainty among governments and corporations. In Western Europe and North America, they managed to bomb an opera house in Barcelona in 1893, bomb the French parliament in 1893, bomb the Cafe Terminus in Paris in 1894, assassinate Marie-Francois Sadi Carnot, the French President, in 1894, bomb the Greenwich Observatory in London in 1894, assassinate William McKinley, the American President, in 1901, bomb the wedding of King Alfonso XIII and Victoria Eugenie in Barcelona in 1906, and bomb Wall Street in 1920.

A third moment appears in Russia of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Narodnaya Volya (The People’s Will), especially its militant wing, engaged in bombings, assassinations and so forth. They managed to assassinate Tsar Aleksandr II in 1881 (after a few attempts). Notably, Lenin’s brother, Aleksandr Ulianov, was involved, although he was arrested and executed in 1887 for his part in the attempted assassination of the next tsar.

The fourth moment follows on the heels of Narodnaya Volya, namely the Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs). A significant force in the wider Left in Russia, they retained terrorism as a tactic, even to the point of being involved in the attempted assassination of Lenin – not a good move when the Bolsheviks were in power.

Indeed, a notable feature of communist movements is that they eschewed ‘terror’ as a revolutionary tactic, since they saw it was counter-productive.


2 thoughts on “A very short history of modern ‘terrorism’

    1. What I find interesting is that when the many ‘anti-terrorism’ projects do investigate the history they tend to begin with the anarchists, thereby neglecting the fact that it has a much deeper, Christian history.

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