Customer Reviews

Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons from Eastern Europe (Studies in Rationality and Social Change)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have no problem with the author's basic theory, as far as it goes. Resistance networks are like any other in that they overlap in membership. This stands to reason in local areas where the given population for any activity is limited. Families, political parties, occupation networks, fraternal organizations are all dipping into the same human well for everyday purposes as well as extraordinary times.

But I don't think this theory adequately explains the combustible nature of Lithuania or the Soviet borderlands in general in their see-saw between Hitler and Stalin. First, these societies were not particularly violent in normal daily life. There is no Balkan or Caucasian cult of personal honor and blood revenge. It was the occupation that created the conditions of violence by kicking over the established states, institutions, and routines that hedged people's behavior. They resisted, in short, because they paradoxically had the freedom and opportunity, as well as the necessity, of resistance.

Secondly, the resistance wasn't (and never is) as universal as its participants wish to believe. They are always large segments of the native population who don't want to get involved in resistance violence, whether from principal or timidity. As Alexander Statiev presented in "The Soviet Counter-Insurgency in the Western Borderlands," much of the partisans' time and effort went into policing the locals and purging their own ranks as in resisting the enemy, with often counter-productive results that the occupiers turned to advantage.

As I said, a good work with a good analysis but doesn't go far enough, in my opinion, in analyzing its subject.