bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Meilidao Protests, 1979
Authors: Greene J. Megan
Published: September 2017

On December 10, 1979, International Human Rights Day, pro‐democracy activists attempted but failed to hold a rally in Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan. The political authorities had denied the protesters a permit and stationed riot police in the park in which the protest was to have occurred. When the demonstrators decided to go ahead with the protest in spite of their not unexpected failure to get a permit, they were beaten and arrested by riot police, and the event never took place in the way in which it had originally been planned. The state's violent reaction to the protesters, however, stimulated a much greater wave of support and pro‐democracy activity than a peaceful and state‐sanctioned protest might have done. The organizers of the event were the editors of
Meilidao
(Formosa) magazine, which had been published since August 1979 by a group of non‐Guomindang (GMD) politicians. The event, therefore, has come to be known by two names, the Meilidao protests and the Kaohsiung incident, and it marked the beginning of Taiwan's pro‐democracy movement of the late 1970s and 1980s.
Mella, Ricardo (1861–1925)
Authors: Roldan‐Figueroa Rady
Published: September 2017

Ricardo Mella is widely recognized as an original theoretician of anarchism and founding figure of Spanish anarchist thought. Born in Galicia, Mella came from an artisanal background. His father was a federalist who introduced him to the political ideas of Francisco Pi y Margall. In 1887 Mella married Esperanza Serrano, daughter of his intellectual mentor Juan Serrano y Oteiza. His early encounter with the federalism of Proudhon proved to be decisive for his career. Like other federalists such as Fermín Salvochea, Farga Pellicer, and Fernando Tárrida the disillusionment caused by the many failures of federal republicanism led him to embrace anarchism.
M
endes,
C
hico (1944–1988) and Amazonian Rainforest Protest and Resistance
Authors: Löwy Michael
Published: September 2017

The Amazonian rainforest is a decisive component of the earth's ecological equilibrium; not only is it the largest existing compound of biodiversity, but it is also a key factor in the absorption of CO
2
, slowing down the process of climate change. The resistance of indigenous and peasant communities against its destruction has therefore a vital importance for humanity as a whole.
Mera Sanz, Cipriano (1897–1975)
Authors: Lee Andrew H.
Published: September 2017

A Spanish anarchist mason who became one of the Civil War's leading military commanders, Mera Sanz began work at age 11, eventually joining the Confederación Nacional de Trabajo (National Labor Confederation) (CNT). He was a leading figure in its Madrid construction union and a leader of the 1936 construction strike. In the debates at the 1936 Zaragoza Congress, Mera opposed the creation of an anarchist militia as contrary to anti‐militarism. Ironically, at the beginning of the war, he became recognized as an able military commander. Nonetheless, he accepted the demise of the militias, and eventually commanded an army group in the center of the country. This group provided military support for a 1939 anti‐communist coup with a negotiated peace as its goal; the coup was successful against the communists, but negotiations with Franco were not. Mera went into exile but was imprisoned and eventually sent back to Spain. A 1942 death sentence was commuted, and in 1945, freed, he went to France. There, he was active in exile politics and continued to work as a mason to the age of 72.
Michel, Louise (1830–1905)
Authors: Kuhn Gabriel
Published: September 2017

Louise Michel (1830–1905), a French educator and writer, was internationally known as an anarchist agitator.
Michnik,Adam (b. 1946)
Authors: Linch Amy
Published: September 2017

Adam Michnik was one of the most charismatic and influential figures in the democratic opposition to state socialism in Poland. His intellectual activism and organizational talent were critical to the success of the Solidarność (Solidarity) movement. Through the influence of Jacek Kuroń he became an outspoken critic of the gap between ideology and practice under the communist regime before he had even finished high school. While a student at Warsaw University he worked with a group of nonconformist intellectuals to foster political engagement among students, encouraging them to challenge authority and interrogate the ideological verities espoused by the Communist Party. His role in the student protests of March 1968 led to one of several prison terms he served over more than two decades of activism, and permanent expulsion from university. During the 1970s he was an active member of the Workers' Defense Committee (Komitet Obrony Robotników, KOR) and a lecturer for the Flying University. He became an advisor to Lech Walesa and the Solidarity movement, and participated in the round table negotiations that ended the Communist Party's dominance of political life in Poland.
Ming Rebellions, 1600s
Authors: Corfield Justin
Published: September 2017

After the Manchus defeated the Ming Dynasty and took control of China in 1644, some Ming loyalists fled to safety in southern China where several groups held out for many years, becoming known as the Southern Ming. The Southern Ming rebellions started soon after the overthrow of the Ming Dynasty by the Manchus, which essentially took place in 1644.
M
ontesquieu,
B
aron de (1689–1755)
Authors: Laberge Yves
Published: September 2017

Charles‐Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu was a prolific French author whose writings helped to spark the great ideological revolution known as the French Enlightenment. Montesquieu's fame as a
philosophe
rests above all on two important books,
Lettres persanes (Persian Letters
, 1721) and
De L'esprit des lois (The Spirit of the Laws
, 1748). The latter is recognized as one of the most influential works of modern political thought for having articulated the theory of separation of governmental powers.
M
oraes,
I
rineu
L
uís de (1912–1994)
Authors: Minto Lalo Watanabe
Published: September 2017

Brazilian communist Irineu Luís de Moraes, better known as “Índio,” was one of the most important militants of São Paulo's interior. His life was dedicated to organizing and defending the rural population. In the 1930s he joined the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) and years later moved to Ribeirão Preto in order to establish the PCB in that region. In 1945 he organized the Peasant League of Dumont, the first in Brazil. At the end of the 1940s he had his first experience of armed struggle in the north of Paraná. Irineu sometimes disagreed with the direction taken by the PCB, complaining of its inadequate support of the agrarian question and its “distance” from people.
M
ossadegh,
M
ohammad (1881–1967)
Authors: Bhattacharya Nandini
Published: September 2017

Mohammad Mossadegh, an Iranian nationalist, democrat, socialist, and leader of foreign imperialism, was born in Tehran. His father was the finance minister under the Qajar king, Naser al‐Din, and his mother was a granddaughter of Crown Prince Abbas Mirza. His marriage to a Qajar princess strengthened the linkage with the royal family. Before entering politics Mossadegh, who received higher education in Paris and Switzerland in law and economics, taught at the Political Science Institute of Tehran. In fact he was the first Iranian to have a law degree. His exposure to Europe had its influence in the making of his liberal political outlook.
Munda, Birsa (ca. 1872–1900)
Authors: Chatterjee Debi
Published: September 2017

Birsa was the leader of the Munda Rebellion, one of the significant tribal movements waged against colonial rule in India. Different estimates place his year of birth between 1872 and 1876. As for his birthplace, the claims lean toward Ulihatu in Ranchi District and Bamba in Singuri, adjacent to Chalkad. Study at missionary schools made Birsa receptive to Christianity.
Müntzer, Thomas (ca. 1489–1525)
Authors: Bluemel Helen
Published: September 2017

Thomas Müntzer was a revolutionary theologian, reformer, and peasant leader. He was born in Stolberg, central Germany, and began his theological studies in Leipzig in 1506. In 1513 he became a collaborator, or an assistant spiritual teacher. Around 1513 or 1514 he was ordained a priest and took office in Braunschweig. He became a member of an anti‐clerical and mystic circle that aimed for a spiritual, moral, and social renewal of the church. Thus, Müntzer's reformist direction became discernible years before he was introduced to Martin Luther's ideas.
Mussolini, Benito (1883–1945)
Authors: Nello Paolo
Published: September 2017

Benito Mussolini was the founder and leader of Italian fascism, a right‐wing populist current in opposition to the growing tide of working‐class organization and efforts to build a more just society. Mussolini, who aligned with the German Nazis, was defeated by the Italian partisan resistance, many seeking to establish a democratic and socialist state at the end of World War II.
Mzingeli, Charles (1905–1980)
Authors: Scarnecchia Timothy
Published: September 2017

Charles Mzingeli was a leading labor activist and organizer in present‐day Zimbabwe. Born in 1905, Mzingeli spent his childhood living on a Catholic Mission near Plumtree, Southern Rhodesia. His father had been a military leader under the famous Ndebele leader, Lobengula, whose men fought the Europeans after finding out they had deceived him in the treaties they had him sign. After the defeat of the Ndebele by the British South Africa Company forces, Mzingeli's father moved onto mission land and raised his children as Catholics. Mzingeli started primary school late, and spent one year studying in South Africa before returning home because of poor health. He ran away from his parents' home at the age of 14 and went to work on the railroads as a young apprentice. He would later move to Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia's second largest city, where he came under the political influence of Clement Kadalie's Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union (ICU). Mzingeli was trained as an ICU organizer, and in 1929 he was sent to Harare Township, Salisbury, as the ICU's organizing secretary.
Namibia, Struggle for Independence
Authors: Dedering Tilman
Published: September 2017

The dispossession and disempowerment of indigenous people in South West Africa/Namibia spans a century of colonial rule, extending from the heyday of the imperialist scramble for Africa in the 1880s to the period of superpower proxy wars in southern Africa in the late twentieth century. Namibia was the last colony on the continent to gain national independence in 1990. The colonial history of Namibia is marked by some of the worst excesses which European colonialism and racism inflicted on Africans, ranging from genocide to systematic discrimination under apartheid. The final collapse of colonial rule was not only the result of the global power shifts which impacted on the region in the last decades of the twentieth century. Throughout the different phases of colonial rule, from the German period (1884–1915) to the South African occupation (1915–90), indigenous resistance to colonial domination covered a wide range of options, ranging from local rebellions and various acts of non‐compliance and protest to the organized diplomatic and military struggle for national self‐determination.
National Organization for Women (
NOW
)
Authors: Gamber Cayo
Published: September 2017

Founded in Washington, DC in 1966, the National Organization for Women (NOW) is one of the best‐known feminist organizations in the United States. The organization was founded by 28 women and men who attended the Third National Conference of the Commission on the Status of Women. With 300 members and an annual budget of $1,500, its primary mission was “to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men.”
Négritude Movement
Authors: Bouchard Jennifer Westmoreland
Published: September 2017

In the 1930s, Aimé Cesaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Léon Damas, Gilbert Gratient, Léonard Sainville, and Paulette and Jane Nardal – seven young intellectuals from various parts of the Francophone world – met as students at the Sorbonne in Paris. They founded a student journal,
L'Etudiant noir
, that served as a forum for writings on anti‐colonialism and a new form of identity politics based on a common “African” or “black” experience. The articles in
L'Etudiant noir
served as a foundation for the early conceptualization of Négritude. Though Cesaire, Senghor, and Damas are typically credited as
“les trois pères”
(“the three fathers”) of Négritude, it is important to note that the writings of all of the aforementioned scholars helped to shape one of the largest anti‐colonial literary and artistic movements of the twentieth century.
New
A
ustralia Movement
Authors: Whitehead Anne
Published: September 2017

In 1893 approximately 500 white Australians, rebelling against perceived inequalities and injustice in the system at home, set off for South America with their ideological leader, an English journalist William Lane (1861–1917), to attempt to live out his vision of a socialist utopia in the Paraguayan wilderness. The Australian poet Henry Lawson, tempted to go with them, wrote that it was “the hope of something better than the present or the past” that would “save us in the end”(
New Australia Journal
, March 1894). But the settlers soon divided into two rival camps and the scheme ultimately failed, as had been predicted back in Australia. The second commune, Colonia Cosme, actually persisted for 16 years along broad socialist principles, although it fell dismally short in terms of gender equality, while the notion of racial equality was never contemplated and actively opposed. Today, a few thousand descendants of that socialist experiment still live in Paraguay; a few were even candidates for the Colorado Party of the infamous right‐wing dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner (1954–89).
N
ew
J
ewel Movement
Authors: Ness Immanuel
Published: September 2017

The New Jewel movement (New Joint Endeavor for Welfare, Education, and Liberation), or NJM, was a liberation movement that staged a revolution in the 1970s in Grenada, a small island‐nation located in the far south of the Windward Island chain of the Caribbean Sea. The vast majority of Grenada's population in the 1970s, especially former slaves of African heritage, endured widespread poverty and scarcity of basic living necessities. In the 1970s the NJM transformed into a political party with a platform of nationalization of the island's major infrastructure, redistributing land to peasants, and to recover a greater share of revenues derived from the tourism industry, which was providing a growing share of the national gross domestic product.
N
orway, Protest and Revolution
Authors: Hare J. Laurence
Published: September 2017

Like much of Scandinavia, Norway's transformation into a modern nation‐state witnessed relatively few of the violent revolutionary upheavals that rocked Western Europe. In explaining this phenomenon, some Norwegian scholars have pointed to the absence of catalysts for revolutions and polarizing forces such as strong class divisions and ethnic tensions. Others have cited the agrarian nature of Norwegian society or the country's long‐standing liberal traditions. Yet there remain a number of unique aspects of the history of Norwegian protest that draw the interest of scholars, such as the impact of the pre‐industrial Thrane movement on the development of European socialism and labor protest. Others include the integral role of the Norwegian independence movement not only to the emergence of Norwegian nationalism, but also to the development of liberal democracy, the labor movement, and the push for women's rights. Finally, the history of Norwegian resistance to the Nazis during World War II stands out as an important example of coordinated non‐violent resistance and symbolic protest.
N
otting
H
ill Riots, 1958
Authors: Høgsbjerg Christian
Published: September 2017

Summer 1958 saw mass racial violence perpetrated by whites against black people in two areas of Britain, the city of Nottingham and, more seriously, in the area of “Notting Hill” in west London. The underlying causes were many and complex, but critical in working‐class areas of London was a housing crisis due to “Rachmanism,” unaccountable racketeering slum landlords. Besides overcrowded, poor quality housing, black immigrants to Britain faced a “color bar”– racist discrimination in employment and public places. When the threat of unemployment raised its head in 1958, newly arrived migrant workers trying to make homes for themselves provided an easy scapegoat for racists.
N
u,
U
(1907–1995)
Authors: Corfield Justin
Published: September 2017

U Nu (Thakin Nu) was a leading independence politician in Burma, and its first prime minister from 1948 until 1956, and then again from 1957 until 1958, and from 1960 until 1962. He was born on May 25, 1907 at Wakema and attended the University of Rangoon, where he gained his BA in 1929. Nu then turned to teaching and became the headmaster of the National High School in Pantanaw. In 1934 he returned to the University of Rangoon to study law and began his involvement in politics as president of the University of Rangoon Students' Union, with Aung San (1915–47) as his secretary. The two were expelled from the university after an article critical of British rule appeared in their union magazine. The expulsion led to a massive university students' strike in February 1936. This made Nu known all around Burma, and in 1937 he joined the Dobama Asiayone (We‐Burmans Association), which had been formed in 1930. The members were known as the Thakins and Nu became known as Thakin Nu – in 1952 he announced that he would prefer to be known as U (Mr.) Nu.
N
yerere,
J
ulius (1922–1999)
Authors: Omobowale Ayokunle Olumuyiwa
Published: September 2017

Julius Nyerere emerged on the Tanganyika political landscape in the mid‐1950s as the British prepared the country for political independence. Born on April 13, 1922 in Butiama village, Nyerere's father, Nyerere Burito, was recognized as a visionary who predicted the coming of the Europeans. And thus, when the first white man arrived, he was taken to Nyerere's father who confirmed that the white man was part of the new people he had talked about. Nyerere Burito was subsequently appointed a traditional chief by German colonial officials. After completing primary education in Tanganyika, Julius Nyerere went on to receive a diploma from Makerere University College in Uganda. From Makerere, Nyerere enrolled in the University of Edinburgh, where he earned a master's degree in the arts.
O
'
H
iggins,
B
ernardo
R
iquelme (1778–1842)
Authors: Gamboa C. Andrés
Published: September 2017

Bernardo Riquelme O'Higgins was a leading figure in the Chilean independence movement. He is known as the “father of the fatherland” for his contribution to the establishment of the newly constituted free republic. Along with other American patriots, such as José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar, O'Higgins is considered a liberator of America.
O
ka Crisis
Authors: Bourgeois Robyn
Published: September 2017

In the summer of 1990 the police and Canadian military clashed with indigenous protestors at a blockade outside of Oka, Quebec. The standoff, which lasted 78 days and resulted in the death of a police officer, brought national and international attention to indigenous land claims in Canada. As a colonial nation, Canada has a long history of conflict with indigenous peoples over land ownership. Through land claims and treaties, federal and provincial governments have attempted to negotiate settlements with many of Canada's indigenous tribes. However, many land claims remain unresolved (particularly in British Columbia), the result of which is that indigenous and non‐indigenous communities often find themselves in conflict over parcels of land.
O
rtiz,
F
ernando (1881–1969)
Authors: Jooste Rhayn Garrick
Published: September 2017

Fernando Ortiz was a Cuban musicologist, lawyer, ethnologist, philosopher, and writer considered the third discoverer of Cuba, due to his research into Cuba's African heritage, and the disseminator of a transcultural Cuban identity. His work centers on Afro‐Cuban folklore and music. He founded the Sociedad del Folklore Cubano (1923) and the Sociedad de Estudios Afrocubanos (1937), as well as periodicals such as
Revista de Administración Teórica y Práctica del Estado, la Provincia y el Municipio
(1912),
Archivos del Folklore
(1924),
Surco
(1930), and
Ultra
(1936). However, his main repute stems from his publications engaging with both religious and non‐religious Afro‐Cuban musicology, sociology, law, and folklore. His work ranges from critiques and jurisprudence to ethnology and linguistics.
Ōsugi
S
akae (1885–1923)
Authors: Nelson David G.
Published: September 2017

Ōsugi Sakae, Japanese anarchist intellectual leader, was a prolific writer and translator of the works of anarchists including Kropotkin, Bakunin, and Goldman. Born in Shikoku, Ōsugi attended Nagoya Cadet School until his expulsion for disorderly conduct in 1901. Thereafter he moved to Tokyo to attend middle school, where he buried himself in his studies and embarked on a spiritual journey, ultimately turning to anarchism after his mother's death. Anarchist Kōtoku Shūsui discovered Ōsugi and recruited him as a contributor for Kōtoku's paper, the
Heimin shimbun
. Ōsugi eventually became central to the Japanese anarchist movement as an ardent, vocal activist.
P
aine,
T
homas (1737–1809)
Authors: Maddern Stacy Warner
Published: September 2017

Writing of “the times that try men's souls” in his essay The Crisis, Thomas Paine issued the battle‐cry of the American Revolution. Paine communicated ideas of revolution to peasants and intellectuals alike, creating prose that would both inspire passion and receive tremendous ridicule. Paine would incite revolution in America, Britain, and France, addressing every class of people without discrimination, envisioning a society that was free of slavery, advocating world peace, and demanding security for both poor and elderly.
Pamphleteering and Political Protest, Dutch Republic, 1672
Authors: Daudeij J. M. F.
Published: September 2017

The political pamphlet gives us an insight into seventeenth‐century ideas about the relation between citizens and their government in the Dutch Republic and the use of language in political protest. Although the relationship was like that of master over servant, inhabitants of the towns who were able to obtain formal citizenship were more than just subjects. Citizenship, to quote Charles Tilly, may be defined as the “continuing series of transactions between persons and agents of a given state in which each has enforceable rights and obligations” (1995: 8). Besides paying taxes, citizens had duties such as defending the town or restoring order as members of the militia. This gave them a certain power because the regents who governed the cities relied on their loyalty. In return, those in power had to protect the rights of the citizens and foster their interests. A citizen also had access to a guild, an institution that offered protection against the uncertainties of the capitalizing society.
Panama, Nationalism and Popular Mobilization, 1947–2000
Authors: Martínez María Ximena Alvarez
Published: September 2017

Panama's twentieth‐century history is scarred by US intervention and aggression against the country's sovereignty. On November 18, 1903, only 15 days after its independence from Colombia, the Treaty of Hay‐Bunau Varilla with the US was signed. This treaty granted the Americans the right to construct an inter‐oceanic canal, military occupation of the zone, and the prerogative to grant its independence, an element used to justify US interventions in Panama's internal affairs. In 1941 a new constitutional article was approved that removed its authority for military intervention, but this was generally ignored.
Paraguay, Archive of Terror
Authors: Turner† Christina
Published: September 2017

General Alfredo Stroessner took control of Paraguay in 1954. He and the Colorado Party ran the country until 1989, when the Movimiento del 2 de Febrero, led by General Andrés Rodríguez, ousted Stroessner. During his 35 years in power, Stroessner consolidated and maintained his position through arrests, torture, and intimidation of his enemies and awards for his allies. Despite the regime change, the Colorado Party remained in power under the leadership of Rodríguez, who called for a move to democracy and open elections.
Pearse, Patrick (Pádraig) (1879–1916)
Authors: Mulligan William H.
Published: September 2017

Patrick Pearse, also remembered by the Irish form of his name, Padraig, was the most visible of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising. His mystical sense of Irish nationality, his literary skill in articulating it, and his willingness to embrace martyrdom have made him a central figure in the Irish republican tradition.
Perovskaya, Sofya (1853–1881) and the Narodnaya Volya (“Will of the People”)
Authors: Larocca Giuseppina
Published: September 2017

Sofya Perovskaya was a terrorist and organizer of the movement called
Narodnaya Volya
(Will of the People). Born into an aristocratic family (her father, General Lev Perovsky, was at one time the governor of St. Petersburg), at the age of 12 she went to Geneva, where her uncle lived. Most of the Russian émigré writers worked there, and Perovskaya may have known about 1860s nihilism when, in 1866, the nihilist student Karakozov attempted to assassinate Tsar Alexander II. In 1869 she attended the recently opened Alarchinsky courses for young women instigated by the tsar, where she learned physics, mathematics, geometry, Russian, and pedagogy. In 1870 she rebelled against her strict father and ran away from home, deciding not to return.
Peru, Armed Insurgency and the Dirty War, 1980–1990
Authors: Leibensperger Summer D.
Published: September 2017

Beginning in 1980 and lasting into the 1990s, the Partido Comunista del Peru en el Sendero Luminoso de Mariátegui (PCP‐SL or the Communist Party for Peru for the Shining Path of Mariátegui) engaged in guerilla warfare against Peru's central government. Guided by Maoist ideology, PCP‐SL planned to overthrow the Peruvian state, replacing it with a New Democracy, leading the way to a socialist society. PCP‐SL engaged in thousands of rebel attacks in the 1980s against possible collaborators of all social backgrounds. The government's response was brutal. First it ignored PCP‐SL and the factors that led to its rise, which PCP‐SL exploited to gain territory and followers, and then responded by inflicting indiscriminate violence both on PCP‐SL members and peasants.
Peru, Labor and Peasant Mobilizations, 1900–1950
Authors: Drinot Paulo
Published: September 2017

Labor and peasant mobilization in Peru in the first half of the twentieth century was shaped by, and helped shape, the country's insertion into the world economy as an exporter of largely unprocessed primary products such as sugar, cotton, wool, rubber, metals, and petroleum. This varied export quantum, fueled by a combination of national and transnational capital, reflected the development of regional economies geared toward the export of commodities that produced distinctive labor arrangements. Labor and peasant mobilization responded to various forces in this context, some bottom‐up, but many top‐down. In addition to the emergence of political parties and elite organizations purporting to represent, lead, and – in the case of the Andean indigenous peasantry – redeem workers and peasants, the first half of the twentieth century saw the formation of a state apparatus that sought to shape labor and the peasantry through social policy. Labor and peasant mobilization in Peru, as this suggests, was the outcome of a dynamic interplay of various forces.
Pham Van Dong (1906–2000)
Authors: Corfield Justin
Published: September 2017

Pham Van Dong was a senior member of the Vietnamese Communist Party and prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) from 1955 until 1976. Following the defeat of the US and South Vietnamese, in 1974, Pham Van Dong was chairman of the Council of Ministers of a unified Vietnam until retiring in 1987.
Pinto, Pio Gama (1927–1965)
Authors: Rajan Zahid
Published: September 2017

Pio Gama Pinto was independent Kenya's first martyr. Journalist, freedom fighter, and political activist, he was a socialist who dedicated his life to liberation and justice for the Kenyan people. He was assassinated on February 24, 1965.
Plekhanov, Georgi (1856–1918)
Authors: Vesela Pavla
Published: September 2017

Plekhanov began his revolutionary career as a populist, but emerged as the first major theoretician of the early Marxist movement in Russia, responsible for introducing the country to important western Marxist texts and participating in political activism. Plekhanov's own voluminous works address such diverse fields as politics, sociology, history, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and the natural sciences.
Poland, Committee for Workers (KOR)
Authors: Linch Amy
Published: September 2017

From 1976 until the legalization of Solidarność (Solidarity) in 1981 the Committee for Workers (Komitet Obrony Robotników) (KOR) inspired and nurtured oppositional politics within Poland. Although its actual membership was relatively small, and initially drawn exclusively from the Warsaw intelligentsia, KOR became a focal point and organizing force for social resources across class and milieu. Its philosophy and practice of opposition challenged totalitarian rule by promoting social solidarity and creating realms of independent social action. It sought to transform social values and liberate public space by reclaiming the language and ideals of community appropriated by what Lipinski called “this socialism of mismanagement and inefficiency … this socialism of prisons, censorship and police” (Celt & Sabbat 1981: 2). Over its five years of existence KOR propagated a disciplined, cohesive, non‐violent oppositional practice that was critical to the formation and success of the Solidarity movement. As Anna Walentynowicz, one of the leaders of Solidarity, asserted in March 1981, “without KOR there would be no Solidarity in Poland” (Celt & Sabbat 1981: 6).
Populism
Authors: Goodwyn Lawrence
Published: September 2017

The Populist Revolt in late nineteenth‐century America was the connecting link between two huge organizing achievements – the Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union and the People's Party. These two organizing feats broadly test conventional ideas about how independent political action can be an instrument of social change in modern societies. It is a test many have not managed to pass: populism stands as one of the least understood political movements in American history. As for the movement, so for the word itself: in its modern usage, “populism” is one of those vague terms of description that can be easily molded into whatever partisan shape its user may wish it to have. A fair measure of explanation is required to sort through this maze.
Portugal, Protest and Revolution, 20th Century
Authors: Galván Javier A.
Published: September 2017

Portugal experienced three main forces of protest and revolution in the twentieth century. First, the general population forced the king to abdicate in 1910. However, the first attempt to establish a republic failed rather quickly, and an authoritarian government took over in 1928. Second, following a long dictatorship of almost 50 years, the Portuguese led by a workers' movement toppled fascism with a massive populist revolution. Third, one of the largest sources of economic and political tension for Portugal in the late 1900s was the overseas colonies in Africa and Asia, which it formally retained longer than other major European imperialist states. The constant revolts in the colonies contributed to the coup d'état that deposed the dictatorship in 1974.
Rhodakanaty, Plotino Constantino (1828–?)
Authors: Cohn Jesse
Published: September 2017

Born in Athens to a wealthy noble family, Plotino Constantino Rhodakanaty (a.k.a. Plotinos Rodokanakes) popularized the ideas of Charles Fourier and Pierre Joseph Proudhon in colonial‐era Mexico, effectively founding the anarchist tradition there. Trained as a doctor in Vienna and Berlin and influenced by Hungarian nationalist struggles as well as by a personal encounter with Proudhon, Rhodakanaty was an eclectic and prolific philosopher, attracted to Fourier's utopian socialism and Proudhon's anarchism.
Riel, Louis (1844–1885)
Authors: Bourgeault Ron
Published: September 2017

Louis Riel played a central role in the Red River (1869–70) and Northwest (1885) Rebellions and founded the province of Manitoba in 1870. He was born on October 22, 1844 at st. Boniface, Red River colony, and was executed for high treason on November 16, 1885 at Regina, Northwest Territories. A much maligned figure in Canadian history, Riel has been often categorized as a religious mystic and political fanatic. A political leader, visionary, and poet, Riel was a nineteenth‐century radical liberal democrat, though also influenced by Roman Catholicism and Marxism. Educated first by the missionary Oblates at st. Boniface, in 1858 Riel was sent to Quebec to study for the priesthood at the Collège de Montréal (1858–64).
Right‐to‐work Protests,
F
rance, 1848
Authors: Pilbeam Pamela
Published: September 2017

The organization of work and the right to work became major issues after the Revolution of 1848 in France, but the notion that the state had some responsibility for the workless was no socialist “Trojan horse” as some conservatives suggested. since the time of Jean‐Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's minister in the midseventeenth century, municipalities and the state, the latter a major employer of labor on civil engineering projects, were accustomed to finding extra navvying and other rough work for the unemployed in ad hoc
ateliers de charité
in times of crisis. When he was
intendant
in Limoges and comptroller‐general in Paris in the 1770s, Turgot, referring to past practice, had established public workshops to employ the jobless in road and canal building and other projects.
Ríos, Filiberto Ojeda (1933–2005)
Authors: Araya Fernando Artavia
Published: September 2017

Puerto Rican nationalist and pro‐independence leader Filiberto Ojeda Ríos was born in Naguabo in 1933. He spent his adolescence between Puerto Rico and New York and showed a special talent for music. During the 1950s Ojeda combined his studies and work in New York factories with political activism, joining the Cuban 26th of July Movement (Movimiento 26 de Julio) and the Puerto Rican Liberation Movement (Movimiento Libertador de Puerto Rico), which exposed him to the political and social history of Us colonial rule over the island.
Rizal, José (1861–1896)
Authors: Navarro Atoy M.
Published: September 2017

José Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonzo Realonda was a Filipino patriot, physician, and polymath, considered the most prominent propagandist and reformist in the Philippines during the spanish colonial era. He is recognized as one of the martyrs of the Philippine Revolution and the anniversary of his death is commemorated as a national holiday called Rizal Day.
Rochambeau, Comte de (1725–1807)
Authors: Martone Eric
Published: September 2017

Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, was a French aristocrat, a military leader, and a Marshall of France who participated in the American and French Revolutions. Leading his own French troops in the early 1780s, Rochambeau joined forces with General George Washington in support of American independence. During the French Revolution in the 1790s, however, Rochambeau defended the royal government of King Louis XVI in France.
Romania, Mineworker Protests, 20th Century
Authors: Vasi Ion Bogdan
Published: September 2017

Jiu Valley miners of Romania have participated in among Eastern Europe's most powerful labor strikes throughout the twentieth century. Labor strife has appeared under both private ownership and state control. The first major conflict began when the mines were under private control in the summer of 1929, when workers from Lupeni went on strike demanding shorter workdays and higher salaries. A radical group of miners occupied the power station controlling the mines' pumping machinery, threatening to flood the mines. The authorities sent in troops to restart the power station and break the strike; in the ensuing confrontation between the soldiers and the miners, approximately 22 miners were killed and 58 wounded by government forces.
Rousseau,Jean‐Jacques (1712–1778)
Authors: Richardson Annette
Published: September 2017

Jean‐Jacques Rousseau was an Enlightenment philosopher whose revolutionary ideas had a great impact on the French Revolution. His ideas also influenced the development of socialist theory and nationalism. Rousseau's outlook was based on the notion of the “noble savage” – that humankind was naturally good, but became corrupted by the development of society, which gave rise to property, inequality, slavery, and poverty.
R
umiñahui (
d
. 1535)
Authors: Uriona Viviana
Published: September 2017

Rumiñahui (in Kichwa language “stone face” or “stone eyes”) was an Inca military leader and one of the most important chieftains under Atahualpa (the last sovereign emperor of the Inca Empire). After Atahualpa's execution by the Spanish conquistadores, Rumiñahui put up resistance in the north of the Inca Empire. He was also involved in the fratricidal war between Atahualpa and Huascars on the side of Atahualpa (1527–32).
St.Bartholomew's Day Massacre
Authors: De Waele Michel
Published: September 2017

The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre was one of the bloodiest events of the Wars of Religion that shook France from 1562 to 1598. Catholics in Paris killed between 2,000 and 4,000 Protestants between August 24 (St. Bartholomew's Day) and August 30, 1572, and then thousands more in various provincial towns between August 24 and October 6. Estimates of the total number of Protestants massacred in France during that period vary from 10,000 to 100,000.
S
alam ‘
A
del (1924–1963) and the Communist Party,
I
raq
Authors: Franzén Johan
Published: September 2017

Salam'Adel, whose real name was Husayn Ahmad al‐Radi, was first secretary of the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) from 1955 until his death at the hands of the Baathist counterrevolutionaries in 1963. As the only one in his family to complete a secondary degree (ninth grade), Husayn was able to attend the Dar al‐Mu'allimin al‐Ibtida'iyyah (Elementary Teachers' Training School) in al‐'Azamiyyah. It was there that Husayn first encountered the ideas of the ICP through its clandestine publication,
al‐Qa'idah
(The Base). In 1944, after completing his degree, Husayn became an elementary school teacher in al‐Diwaniyyah
Muhafazah
(“region”). In al‐Diwaniyyah his future father‐in‐law, Naji Yusuf, had recently been appointed director of education. He soon became impressed with Husayn and eventually elevated him to sports and arts teacher in the secondary school.
S
alvadoran Civil War, 1980–1991
Authors: Brett Edward T.
Published: September 2017

The Salvadoran Civil War, taking the lives of about 70,000 people, was fought between the Salvadoran government and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). In spite of countless massacres and executions perpetrated by Salvadoran security forces and right‐wing death squads, the US government continued to support the Salvadoran government and military throughout the war, providing US$7 billion in assistance. The Reagan administration, largely ignoring the unjust political, economic, and social structures in El Salvador, saw the conflict in purely Cold War terms as part of the global battle between the US and Soviet Union.
Samkange, Stanlake John William Thompson (1922–1988)
Authors: Fourshey Catherine Cymone
Published: September 2017

Stanlake John William Thompson Samkange, historian, novelist, and author of 17 books, was active in mid‐twentieth‐century Zimbabwean (Rhodesian) politics. Born in 1922 to socially progressive, politically active Christian parents, Stanlake was one of nine children (seven of whom survived beyond childhood). The children were Betty and Hilda, who died as infants, followed in order by Ernest, Stanlake, Norah, Evelyn, Don, Edgar, and Sketchley. Thompson Douglas Samkange (1893–1956) and his wife Grace Samkange(néeMano), part of an educated elite in colonial Zimbabwe, struggled economically to ensure that Stanlake and their other six children were well educated in both the Methodist and scholarly traditions.
Sans‐Culottes
Authors: Johnson Eric F.
Published: September 2017

Sans‐culotteswas the term that came to refer to the politically radical lower classes and to Parisian militants in particular during the French Revolution. Literally meaning “without knee‐breeches,” it originated as an expression of contempt for the commoners who wore trousers instead of the breeches customarily worn by the upper classes. Although thesans‐culotteswere not a political party in a formal sense, many prominent journalists and politicians identified themselves with their cause, and their activism was a catalyst for several of the Revolution's important developments, including the fall of the monarchy and the Terror. For a time they were the most influential element in revolutionary politics.
S
ão
T
omé e Princípe, Labor/Nationalists
Authors: Corfield Justin
Published: September 2017

The former Portuguese colony of São Tomé e Princípe is located on two main islands in the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of Central Africa. The Portuguese were the first European colonial power to chart the island of São Tomé in 1469, establishing a colony 16 years later. The island was rapidly transformed into a center of Portuguese rule in the area with extensive sugar plantations kept going by the slave trade. In 1530 a large slave revolt stimulated many plantation owners to relocate to Brazil. The move signaled the decline of the sugar industry on the island. Subsequently, São Tomé was maintained as a transit center for the slave trade between Congo and North America. By the eighteenth century, Portuguese settlers established coffee and cocoa plantations, and after the abolition of slavery on the island in 1875 farmers substituted a system of indentured labor, leading to widespread labor abuses and boycotts of coffee from São Tomé in the early twentieth century.
Saskatchewan Socialist Movement
Authors: Cheng Hongming
Published: September 2017

As a largely agricultural province in Canada, Saskatchewan has a well‐deserved historical reputation for its agrarian democratic socialism. Its progressive tradition began even before the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), forerunner of the New Democratic Party (NDP), came to power in Saskatchewan in 1944, the first electorally successful North American socialist movement. The CCF regime pioneered Medicare and other social welfare programs in North America. The CCF‐NDP has won 12 out of 17 elections and governed for 47 of the 63 years to 2007. While many historians and political observers consider it impossible to link electoral politics with social movements, the Saskatchewan socialist movement is unique in its effort to amalgamate popular struggles of the masses and political party objectives.
Schleswig‐Holstein Uprisings
Authors: Hare J. Laurence
Published: September 2017

The uprising in Schleswig‐Holstein began as part of the wave of liberal revolutions sweeping across Europe in the spring of 1848. On March 18, the members of the region's two estate assemblies met in the city of Rendsburg to coordinate their protest against the Danish monarchy, which had ruled Schleswig‐Holstein since the eighteenth century. Initially, these bourgeois revolutionaries joined the chorus of voices in Copenhagen calling for constitutional reform and an end to absolutism. Within days, however, a growing divide between German and Danish speakers sundered the unity of the protests and transformed the revolution into a struggle between competing nationalist visions. Although the revolt ultimately failed to change the political status of the duchies in the short term, it nevertheless brought into the center of European politics the so‐called “Schleswig‐Holstein Question,” which would play a key role in German unification and would shape the border region until the mid‐twentieth century.
Sembène, Ousmane (1923–2007)
Authors: Kaya Marie Martine Maguetcham‐Ruche
Published: September 2017

Writer, film director, and leading voice in African avant‐garde cinema, Ousmane Sembène was born January 1923 in Zinguinchor, Senegal. Sembène was primarily self‐educated after he was expelled from French colonial school for striking back at his French teacher who had slapped him. After various jobs as diverse as fisherman, plumber, and mechanic, Sembène enrolled in the French army until the liberation of France from the Nazis in 1944.
Seneca Falls Convention
Authors: Guinn Lisa
Published: September 2017

On July 19 and 20, 1848 the first American women's rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York at the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel. The convention was the brainchild of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) and Lucretia Mott (1793–1880), born in a revolutionary moment in London in 1840 while both women attended the World Anti‐Slavery Convention. Stanton was in London accompanying her husband, Henry, who was a delegate at the convention. Mott and six other women were supposed to be delegates themselves. Upon arriving at the convention in London, the women were told they could not participate and must remain silent in the balcony of the convention hall. Both Stanton and Mott were outraged at this banish ment of women who had been active and vocal participants in the American anti‐slavery movement. According to Mott and Stanton, it was that moment that initiated the talk of a women's rights convention of their own.
Senghor, Léopold (1906–2001)
Authors: Adeniran Adebusuyi I.
Published: September 2017

A poet, nationalist, and cultural philosopher, Léopold Senghor established the Senegalese Democratic Bloc Party that led Senegal to independence. He was the first president of the country from 1960 to 1980 and the first African member of the elitist Académie française.
Serbia, Anti‐Bureaucratic Revolution, 1987–1989
Authors: Karamanić Slobodan
Published: September 2017

The “anti‐bureaucratic revolution” (ABR) in Serbia signified a process of political cadre changes, arrests, and constitutional reforms, simultaneously followed by a series of organized “spontaneous” meetings, demonstrations, and riots. The events led Slobodan Milošević to advance his political control over Serbia and Yugoslavia, undermining the delicate political balance within the federal system. Through abolishing political autonomy in two Serbian provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, in 1989 and removing political cadres in Montenegro, ABR sharpened the latent political and socioeconomic crisis, leading to the disintegration of Yugoslavia's socialist institutional framework.
Serbian Revolution of October 2000
Authors: Kanzleiter Boris
Published: September 2017

To many observers the Serbian Revolution was the consummate “television revolution.” On October 5, 2000, several hundred thousand protesters gathered in the center of Serbia's capital, Belgrade. The international media reported live when a few demonstrators drove a bulldozer into the parliament, which was later set on fire by angry crowds. The clouds in the sky were signaling the downfall of Slobodan Milošević's authoritarian nationalist regime, which had largely dominated Yugoslav and Serbian politics since 1987.
Sigamoney, Bernard L. E. (1888–1963)
Authors: van der Walt Lucien
Published: September 2017

Born in Durban in 1888 to Indian immigrants, and a member of the educated Indian elite, Sigamoney was raised a Christian and worked as headmaster at Estcourt Indian High School, then as a teacher at St. Aidans' Boys' School in the 1910s. A keen sportsman, he was elected vice‐president of the Durban and District Indian Cricket Union in 1910, and served on the South African Colored Cricket Board from 1913.