Communist terrorism

Communist terrorism (or Communist terror) is terrorism committed by Communist organizations or Communist states against civilians to achieve political or ideological objectives by creating fear.After Islamic groups, Communist groups comprise the largest number of organizations on the U.S. State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.[citation needed] The term is also widely used to describe the political repression conducted by Communist governments against the civilian population such as the Red Terror and Great Terror in the Soviet Union.Some scholars also treat man-made famines due to collectivization as a form of terror.

History and ideology of Communist terrorism
 
German Social Democrat Karl Kautsky and other authors trace the origins of Communist terrorism to the "Reign of Terror" of the French Revolution.Others emphasize the role of Russian revolutionary movements of the 19th century, and especially Narodnaya Volya ("People's Will") and the Nihilist movement, which included several thousand followers. "People's Will" organized one of the first political terrorism campaign in history.In March 1881, it assassinated the Emperor of Russia Alexander II, who twenty years earlier had emancipated the Russian serfs.

Important ideologists of these groups were Mikhail Bakunin and Sergey Nechayev, who was described in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel "The possessed". Nechaev argued that the purpose of revolutionary terror in not to gain a support of masses, but to the contrary, inflict misery and fear on the common population. He said:

A revolutionary "must infiltrate all social formations including the police. He must exploit rich and influential people, subordinating them to himself. He must aggravate the miseries of the common people, so as to exhaust their patience and incite them to rebel. And, finally, he must ally himself with the savage word of the violent criminal, the only true revolutionary in Russia". "The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire being is devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion - the revolution. Heart and soul, not merely by word but by deed, he has severed every link with the social order and with the entire civilized world; with the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world. He is its merciless enemy and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose - to destroy it."


Terror campaigns within the Soviet Union
After the October Revolution Bolsheviks began the campaign of Red Terror. Martin Latsis, chief of the Ukrainian Cheka explained this policy in newspaper "Red Terror":

"Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what is his background, his education, his profession. These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror"
The term "terror" was a normal working term, since the dictatorship of the proletariat was supposed to suppress the resistance of other social classes which Marxism considered antagonistic to the class of proletariat. The entire "ruling classes" have been exterminated, including "rich people", and a significant part of intelligentsia and peasantry labeled as kulaks. The numerous victims of extrajudicial punishment were called the enemies of the people. The punishment by the state included summary executions, torture, sending innocent people to Gulag, involunatry settlement, and stripping of citizen's rights. Usually, all members of a family, including children, were punished simultaneously as "traitor of Motherland family members". The repressions have been conducted by Cheka, OGPU and NKVD in several consecutive waves known as Red Terror, Collectivisation, Great Purge, Doctor's Plot, and others.


Views of Marxism theoreticians and leaders
According to Marx, "There is only one way to shorten and ease the convulsions of the old society and the bloody birth pangs of the new - revolutionary terror". Joseph Stalin wrote a nota bene "Terror is the quickest way to new society" beside this passage in a book by Marx. Marx also believed that "The present generation resembles the Jews whom Moses led through the wilderness. It must not only conquer a new world, it must also perish in order to make a room for the people who are fit for a new world"

Lenin, Lev Trotsky and other leading Bolshevik ideologists recognized mass terror as a necessary weapon during the dictatorship of proletariat and the resulting class struggle. In his book "Defence of Terrorism" Trotsky emphasized that "...the historical tenacity of the bougeoisie is colossal... We are forced to tear off this class and chop it away. The Red Terror is a weapon used against a class that, despite being doomed to destruction, does not want to perish."  On the other hand, they opposed to individual terror, which has been used earlied by Russian "People's Will organization. According to Trotsky, "The damaging of machines by workers, for example, is terrorism in this strict sense of the word. The killing of an employer, a threat to set fire to a factory or a death threat to its owner, an assassination attempt, with revolver in hand, against a government minister—all these are terrorist acts in the full and authentic sense. However, anyone who has an idea of the true nature of international Social Democracy ought to know that it has always opposed this kind of terrorism and does so in the most irreconcilable way."

Many later Marxists, in particular Karl Kautsky, criticized Bolshevik leaders for terrorism tactics. He stated that "among the phenomena for which Bolshevism has been responsible, Terrorism, which begins with the abolition of every form of freedom of the Press, and ends in a system of wholesale execution, is certainly the most striking and the most repellent of all". Kautsky recognized that Red Terror represented a variety of terrorism because it was indiscriminate, intended to frighten the civilian population, and included taking and executing hostages. People were executed simply for who they were, not for their deeds.

This led some historians to belive that the despotism and violence were the intrinsic properties of every Communist regime in the world, since the importance of terror follows from the Marxism teaching which considers human lives as expendable material for construction of the brighter future society.

Promotion of terrorist organizations by Communist states
Later on, Soviet secret services worked to establish a network of terrorist front organizations and have been described as the primary promoters of terrorism worldwide. According to Ion Mihai Pacepa, General Aleksandr Sakharovsky from the First Chief Directorate of the KGB once said: "In today’s world, when nuclear arms have made military force obsolete, terrorism should become our main weapon." He also claimed that "Airplane hijacking is my own invention". In 1969 alone, 82 planes were hijacked worldwide by the KGB-financed Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). George Habash, who worked under the KGB's guidance, explained: "Killing one Jew far away from the field of battle is more effective than killing a hundred Jews on the field of battle, because it attracts more attention."

Lt. General Ion Mihai Pacepa described the operation "SIG" (“Zionist Governments”) that was devised in 1972, to turn the whole Islamic world against Israel and the United States. KGB chairman Yury Andropov allegedly explained to Pacepa that "a billion adversaries could inflict far greater damage on America than could a few millions. We needed to instill a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews throughout the Islamic world, and to turn this weapon of the emotions into a terrorist bloodbath against Israel and its main supporter, the United States."

The following organizations have been allegedly established with assistance from Eastern Bloc security services: the PLO, the National Liberation Army of Bolivia (created in 1964 with help from Ernesto Che Guevara); the National Liberation Army of Colombia (created in 1965 with help from Cuba), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) in 1969, and the Secret Army for Liberation of Armenia in 1975.

The leader of the PLO, Yasser Arafat, established close collaboration with the Romanian Securitate service and the Soviet KGB in the beginning of the 1970s. The secret training of PLO guerrillas was provided by the KGB.However, the main KGB activities and arms shipments were channeled through Wadie Haddad of the DFLP organization, who usually stayed in a KGB dacha BARVIKHA-1 during his visits to Russia. Led by Carlos the Jackal, a group of PFLP fighters accomplished a spectacular raid the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries office in Vienna in 1975. Advance notice of this operation "was almost certainly" given to the KGB.

A number of notable operations have been conducted by the KGB to support international terrorists with weapons on the orders from the Soviet Communist Party, including:

Transfer of machine-guns, automatic rifles, Walther pistols, and cartridges to the Provisional Irish Republican Army by the Soviet intelligence vessel Reduktor (operation SPLASH) in 1972 to fulfill a personal request of arms from Michael O'Riordan.

Transfer of anti-tank grenade RPG-7 launchers, radio-controlled SNOP mines, pistols with silencers, machine guns, and other weaponry to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine through Wadi Haddad who was recruited as a KGB agent in 1970 (operation VOSTOK, "East").

Support of the Sandinista movement. The leading role here belonged to the General Intelligence Directorate of Communist Cuba. 

Preparations for terrorism and sabotage operations against Western countries
Large-scale sabotage operations have allegedly been prepared by the KGB and GRU against the United States, Canada and Europe, according to the Mitrokhin Archive, , GRU defectors Victor Suvorov and Stanislav Lunev, and former SVR officer Kouzminov . Among the planned operations were the following:

Large arms caches were allegedly hidden in many countries for the planned terrorism acts. They were booby-trapped with "Lightning" explosive devices. One of such cache, which was identified by Mitrokhin, exploded when Swiss authorities tried to remove it from woods near Berne. Several others caches (probably not equipped with the "Lightnings") were removed successfully. 
Preparations for nuclear sabotage. Some of the allegedly hidden caches could contain portable tactical nuclear weapons known as RA-115 "suitcase bombs" prepared to assassinate US leaders in the event of war, according to GRU defector Stanislav Lunev. Lunev states that he had personally looked for hiding places for weapons caches in the Shenandoah Valley area and that "it is surprisingly easy to smuggle nuclear weapons into the US" ether across the Mexican border or using a small transport missile that can slip undetected when launched from a Russian airplane
Extensive sabotage plans in London, Washington, Paris, Bonn, Rome, and other Western capitals have been reveled by KGB defector Oleg Lyalin in 1971, including plan to flood the London underground and deliver poison capsules to Whitehall. This disclosure triggered mass expulsion of Russian spies from London
FSLN leader Carlos Fonseca Amador was described as "a trusted agent" in KGB files. "Sandinista guerrillas formed the basis for a KGB sabotage and intelligence group established in 1966 on the Mexican US border".
Disruption of the power supply in the entire New York State by KGB sabotage teams, which would be based along the Delaware river, in the Big Spring Park.
An "immensely detailed" plan to destroy "oil refineries and oil and gas pipelines across Canada from British Columbia to Montreal" (operation "Cedar") has been prepared, which took twelve years to complete.
A plan for sabotage of Hungry Horse Dam in Montana.
A detailed plan to destroy the port of New York (target GRANIT); most vulnerable points of the port were marked at maps.
According to Lunev, a probable scenario in the event of war would be poisoning of Potomac River with chemical or biological weapons, "targeting the residents of Washington DC"  He also noted that it is "likely" that GRU operatives have placed already "poison supplies near the tributaries to major US reservoirs." . That was confirmed by Alexander Kouzminov who was responsible for transporting dangerous pathogens from around the world for Russian program of biological weapons in the 1980s and the beginning of 1990s. He described a variety of biological terrorism acts that would be carried out on the order of Russian President in the event of hostilities, including poisoning public drinking-water supplies and food processing plants.
US Congressman Curt Weldon supported claims by Lunev but noted that Lunev had "exaggerated things" according to the FBI.  Searches of the areas identified by Lunev - who admits he never planted any weapons in the US - have been conducted, "but law-enforcement officials have never found such weapons caches, with or without portable nuclear weapons."


Shining Path
The Communist Party of Peru more commonly known as the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso), is a Maoist guerrilla organization in Peru that launched the internal conflict in Peru in 1980. Widely condemned for its brutality, including violence deployed against peasants, trade union organizers, popularly elected officials and the general civilian population, Shining Path is on the U.S. Department of State's "Designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations" list. Peru, the European Union, and Canada likewise regard Shining Path as a terrorist group and prohibit providing funding or other financial support.


FARC
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is a Marxist-Leninist organization in Colombia which has employed vehicle bombings, gas cylinder bombs, killings, landmines, kidnapping, extortion, hijacking, as well as guerrilla and conventional military. The United States Department of State includes the FARC-EP on its list of foreign terrorist organizations, as does the European Union. It funds itself primarily through extortion, kidnapping and their participation in the illegal drug trade. Many of their fronts have also overrun and massacred small communities in order to silence and intimidate those who do not support their activities, enlist new and underage recruits by force, distribute propaganda and, more importantly, to pillage local banks. Businesses operating in rural areas, including agricultural, oil, and mining interests, were required to pay "vaccines" (monthly payments) which "protected" them from subsequent attacks and kidnappings. An additional, albeit less lucrative, source of revenue was highway blockades where guerrillas stopped motorists and buses in order to confiscate jewelry and money. An estimated 20-30 percent of FARC combatants are under 18 years old, with many as young as 12 years old, for a total of around 5000 children. ), Children who try to escape the ranks of the guerrillas are punished with torture and death

Christian terrorism

Christian terrorism is religious terrorism by groups or individuals, the motivation of which is typically rooted in an idiosyncratic interpretation of the Bible and other Christian tenets of faith. From the viewpoint of the terrorist, Christian scripture and theology provide justification for violent political activities.

History
Ian Gilmour has cited the historical case of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre as an instance of papal terrorism on par with modern day terrorism, and goes on to write, "That massacre, said Pope Gregory XIII, gave him more pleasure than fifty Battles of Lepanto, and he commissioned Vasari to paint frescoes of it in the Vatican". It is estimated that ten thousand to possibly one-hundred thousand Huguenots (French Protestants) were killed by Catholic mobs, and it has been called "the worst of the century's religious massacres". The massacre led to the start of the fourth war of the French Wars of Religion. Peter Steinfels has cited the historical case of the Gunpowder Plot, when Guy Fawkes and other Catholic revolutionaries attempted to overthrow the Protestant aristocracy of England by blowing up the Houses of Parliament, as a notable case of Christian terrorism.


Organizations and acts

Canada

The Sons of Freedom, a sect of Doukhobor anarchists, have protested nude, blown up power pylons, railroad bridges, and set fire to homes, often targeting their own property.


India

The National Liberation Front of Tripura, a rebel group operating in Tripura, North-East India classified by the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism as one of the ten most active terrorist groups in the world, has been accused of forcefully converting people to Christianity.

The Nagaland Rebels of Nagaland, North-East India is a coalition of rebel groups including the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah, has been involved in an ethnic conflict that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths since the Indian Declaration of Independence.


Ireland


Several people have stated that the religious divide between Roman Catholics and Protestants was a contributing factor to The Troubles:

Mark Juergensmeyer wrote "Like residents of Belfast and London, Americans were beginning to learn to live with acts of religious terrorism: shocking, disturbing incidents of violence laced with the passion of religion - in these cases, Christianity" and "The violence in Northern Ireland is justified by still other theological positions, Catholic and Protestant." and "The ferocity of religious violence was brought home to me in 1998 when I received the news that a car bomb had exploded in a Belfast neighborhood I had visited the day before.

Martin Dillon interviewed paramilitaries on both sides of the conflict, questioning how they could reconcile murder with their Christian convictions.

First Minister of Northern Ireland The Revd. and Rt. Hon. Ian Paisley often cast the conflict in religious terms. He preached that the Roman Catholic Church, which he termed "Popery", had deviated from the Bible, and therefore from true Christianity, giving rise to "revolting superstitions and idolatrous abuses". Paisley held that there were links between the Catholic Church and the Provisional Irish Republican Army, a group which is classified as a proscribed terrorist group in the United Kingdom and as an illegal organisation in the Republic of Ireland. He once said "The Provisional IRA is the military wing of the Roman Catholic Church" and has claimed several times that the Pope is the Antichrist, most famously at the European Parliament, where he interrupted a speech by Pope John Paul II, shouting "I denounce you as the Antichrist!" and holding up a red poster reading "POPE JOHN PAUL II ANTICHRIST".

Pastor Alan Campbell has also identified the Papacy as the Antichrist, and has described the IRA as "Roman Catholic terrorists".[citation needed] Campbell preaches a Christian Identity theology; he is strongly against race-mixing, and supports the British Israel hypothesis, claiming that the Celto-Anglo-Saxon people of Ulster are the true "Israel of God".[citation needed]

Steve Bruce, sociology professor at the University of Aberdeen, wrote:

"The Northern Ireland conflict is a religious conflict. Economic and social considerations are also crucial, but it was the fact that the competing populations in Ireland adhered and still adhere to competing religious traditions which has given the conflict its enduring and intractable quality".

Reviewing the book, David Harkness of the The English Historical Review agreed "Of course the Northern Ireland conflict is at heart religious".

John Hickey wrote:

"Politics in the North is not politics exploiting religion. That is far too simple an explanation: it is one which trips readily off the tongue of commentators who are used to a cultural style in which the politically pragmatic is the normal way of conducting affairs and all other considerations are put to its use. In the case of Northern Ireland the relationship is much more complex. It is more a question of religion inspiring politics than of politics making use of religion. It is a situation more akin to the first half of seventeenth‑century England than to the last quarter of twentieth century Britain".

Padraic Pearse was a devoted believer of the Christian faith, a writer, and one of the leaders of the Easter Rising. In his writings he often identified Ireland with Jesus Christ to emphasise the suffering of the nation, and called for his readers to resurrect and redeem the nation, through self-sacrifice which would turn them into martyrs.Browne states that Pearse’s "ideas of sacrifice and atonement, of the blood of martyrs that makes fruitful the seed of faith, are to be found all through [his] writings; nay, they have here even more than their religious significance, and become vitalizing factors in the struggle for Irish nationality".

William Edward Hartpole Lecky, an Irish historian, wrote "If the characteristic mark of a healthy Christianity be to unite its members by a bond of fraternity and love, then there is no country where Christianity has more completely failed than Ireland".

Sweeney argued that self-immolation, in the form of hunger strikes by Irish republicans, was religiously motivated and perceived. He wrote:

"The Rising catapulted the cult of self-sacrifice to centre stage of twentieth century Irish militant politics in a strange marriage of Catholicism and republicanism. A religious and a sacrificial motif can be detected in the writings of those who participated in the 'bloody protest'".

Brian O'Higgins, who helped in the rebel capture of Dublin's General Post Office in O'Connell Street, recalled how all the republications took turn reciting the Rosary every half hour during the rebellion. He wrote that there

"was hardly a man in the volunteer ranks who did not prepare for death on Easter Saturday [sic] and there were many who felt as they knelt at the altar rails on Easter Sunday morning that they were doing no more than fulfilling their Easter duty - that they were renouncing the world and all the world held for them by making themselves worthy to appear before the Judgement Seat of God... The executions reinforced the sacrificial motif as Mass followed Mass for the dead leaders, linking them with the sacrifice of Christ, the ancient martyrs and heroes, and the honoured dead from previous revolts... These and other deaths by hungerstrike transformed not only the perceived sacrificial victims but, in the eyes of many ordinary Irish people, the cause for which they died. The martyrs and their cause became sacred."

Sweeney went on to note that the culture of hunger strikes continued to be used by the Provisional IRA to great effect in the 1970s and 1980s, resulting in a revamped Sinn Fein, and mobilising huge sections of the Catholic community behind the republican cause.

The Guardian newspaper attributed the murder of Martin O'Hagan, a former inmate of the Maze prison and a fearless reporter on crime and the paramilitaries, to the revival of religious fundamentalism.

Although often advocating nationalist policies, these groups consisted of and were supported by distinct religious groups in a religiously partitioned society. Groups on both sides advocated what they saw as armed defence of their own religious group.

The Orange Volunteers are a group infamous for carrying out simultaneous terrorist attacks on Catholic churches.


Romania

Anti-Semitic Romanian Orthodox fascist movements in Romania, such as the Iron Guard and Lăncieri, were allegedly responsible for involvement in the Holocaust, Bucharest pogrom, and political murders during the 1930s.


Russia


Many Russian political and paramilitary groups combine racism, nationalism, and Russian Orthodox beliefs.

Russian National Unity, a far right ultra-nationalist political party and paramilitary organization, advocates an increased role for the Russian Orthodox Church according to its manifesto. It has been accused of murders, and several terrorist attacks including the bombing of the US Consulate in Ekaterinburg.


Uganda

The Lord's Resistance Army, a sectarian guerrilla army engaged in an armed rebellion against the Ugandan government, has been accused of using child soldiers and committing numerous crimes against humanity; including massacres, abductions, mutilation, torture, rape, porters and sex slaves. It is led by Joseph Kony, who proclaims himself the spokesperson of God and a spirit medium, primarily of the Christian Holy Spirit which the Acholi believe can represent itself in many manifestations. LRA fighters wear rosary beads and recite passages from the Bible before battle, but some Islam is mixed into their beliefs as well.

United States
Beginning in the late nineteenth century, white supremacist Ku Klux Klan members in the Southern United States engaged in arson, beatings, cross burning, destruction of property, lynching, murder, rape, tar-and-feathering, and whipping against African Americans, Jews, Catholics and other social or ethnic minorities.

During the twentieth century, members of extremist groups such as the Army of God began executing attacks against abortion clinics and doctors across the United States.A number of terrorist attacks, including the Centennial Olympic Park bombing during the 1996 Summer Olympics, were carried out by individuals and groups with ties to the Christian Identity and Christian Patriot movements; including the Lambs of Christ.:105–120 A group called Concerned Christians unsuccessfully planned to attack holy sites in Jerusalem at the end of 1999, believing that their deaths would "lead them to heaven."

Motivation, ideology and theology
See also: Anti-abortion violence, Christian Patriot movement, and Christian Identity movement
Christian views on abortion have been cited by Christian individuals and groups that are responsible for threats, assault, murder, and bombings against abortion clinics and doctors across the United States and Canada.

Christian Identity is a loosely affiliated global group of churches and individuals devoted to a racialized theology that asserts North European whites are the direct descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, God's chosen people. It has been associated with groups such as the Aryan Nations, Aryan Republican Army, Eric Robert Rudolph, Phineas Priesthood, and The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord. It has been cited as an influence in a number of terrorist attacks around the world, including the 2002 Soweto bombings.