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On the methods of the disciplinary stage of social revolution: guerrilla experience in France and Ukraine

stmm. 2025 (3): 124-137

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/sociology2025.03.124

Full text: https://stmm.in.ua/archive/ukr/2025-3/8.pdf

RODION PRYSHVA, Master of public management and administration; PhD student at the Institute of Sociology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Department of History and Theory of Sociology) (12, Shovkovychna St., Kyiv, 01021)

pryshvarodion@gmail.com

https://orcid.org/0009-0001-1933-3329

The article examines the process of the disciplinary system’s formation within counter-insurgency operations, using the suppression of the Vendée uprising (1793–1796) and the fight against peasant resistance in Ukraine in 1918–1922 as examples. Central attention is given to M. Foucault’s concept of the panopticon, which is interpreted as a model for the transformation of insurgent space from a state of “polyopticon” — a regime of mutual observation and support between insurgents and the local population — into a regime of centralized surveillance and suppression. The author demonstrates how, in conditions of revolutionary anomie and civil war, new forms of power control are created: military, ideological, and police structures gradually seize the initiative from the insurgents, isolating the population from partisan formations and forming a “disciplinary cordon”. Comparative analysis reveals both soft forms of influence (as in the case of General Hoche in France) and harsh forms — characteristic of Bolshevik practices combining terror and administrative-police control (panopticon). The work emphasizes that success in combating guerrillas depends not only on the strength of the coercive apparatus but also on the state’s ability to penetrate the microphysics of everyday life, imposing its network of surveillance, normalization, and control. In conclusion, the article discusses the prospects for the development of guerrilla warfare in the context of technological changes, especially concerning the proliferation of unmanned surveillance systems, which call into question the sustainability of traditional insurgent potential in high-tech societies.

Keywords: guerrilla, small war, partisans, Michel Foucault, Mao Zedong, Lazare Hoche, Lenin, Hans Delbrück, Makhno, Vendée, Red Terror, cordon strategy, revolution, otamanshchyna (banditry/warlordism), Chekists, civil war, polyopticon, panopticon

References:

  1. Arnold, J.R. (2009). Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq. New York: Bloomsbury.

  2. Cabanès, A., Nass, L. (1906). La Névrose révolutionnaire. Paris: Société française d'imprimerie et de librairie.

  3. Callwell, C.E. (1899). Small Wars Their Principles and Practice. London: Harrison and Sons.

  4. Cochin, A. (1921). Les sociétés de pensée et la démocratie: Études tudes d'histoire révolutionnaire. Paris: Plon-Nourrit.

  5. Comte de La Roche. (1770a). Essai sur la petite guerre (T. I). Paris: Chez Saillant & Nyon.

  6. Comte de La Roche, (1770b). Essai sur la petite guerre (T. II). Paris: Chez Saillant & Nyon.

  7. Corbett, R. (1968). Guerrilla Warfare: From 1939 to the Present Day. London: Guild Publishing.

  8. de Grandmaison, T.-A. (1758). La petite guerre: ou traité du service des troupes légères en campagne. Francfort, Leipsic: Chez Knoch & Esslinger.

  9. de La Croix, A.-F. (1752). Traité de la petite guerre pour les compagnies franches. Paris: Antoine Boudet.

  10. de Pétigny, X. (1908). Un bataillon de volontaires (3e bataillon de Maine-et-Loire), 1792-1796. Angers: Germain et g. Grassin.

  11. de San Juan, F. (1822). Instruccion de guerrilla. Lima: Imprenta del Río.

  12. de Saxe, M. (1756). Les Reveries ou Memoires sur l'art de la guerre de Maurice comte de Saxe. Haye: chez Pierre Gosse Junior.

  13. de Tocquevill, A. (1856). L'ancien régime et la révolution. Paris: Michel Levy Frères.

  14. Delbrück, H. (1920). Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte: Die Neuzeit (Bd. IV). Berlin: Verlag Stilke.

  15. Durkheim, É. (1926). De la division du travail social. Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan.

  16. Felstead, A., Jewson, N., Walters, S. (2005). Changing Places of Work. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

  17. Foucault, M. (1975). Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison. Paris: Gallimard.

  18. Joes, A.J. (1996). Guerilla Conflict before the Cold War. Westport: Praeger.

  19. Joes, A.J. (2004). Resisting rebellion: the history and politics of counterinsurgency. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.

  20. Laqueur, W. (1977). Guerrilla: a historical and critical study. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

  21. Le Bon, G. (1916). Enseignements psychologiques de la guerre européenne. Paris: Ernest Flammarion.

  22. Lee, W.E., Anthony E. Carlson, A.E., Preston, D.L., Silbey, D. (2021). The Other Face of Battle: America's Forgotten Wars and the Experience of Combat. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190920647.001.0001

  23. Paul, T.V. (1994). Asymmetric conflicts: war initiation by weaker powers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511598746

  24. Pomeroy, W.T. (1968). Guerrilla Warfare and Marxism. New York: International Publishers.

  25. Rüstow, F.W. (1864). Die Lehre vom kleinen Kriege. Zürich: Druck und Verlag von Friedrich Schultheß.

  26. Small Unit Tactics, Including Communications. (1964). Washington: Headquarters, Department of the Army.

  27. Sorokin, P. (1925). The Sociology of Revolution. Philadelphia, London: J.B. Lippincott Company.

  28. Stofflet, E. (1875). Stofflet et la Vendée. Paris: E. Plon et Cie.

  29. Swenson, B.J. (2023). The Dawn of Guerrilla Warfare: Why the Tactics of Insurgents against Napoleon failed in the US Mexican War. Barnsley: Pen and Sword.

  30. Taine, H. (1885). Les origines de la France contemporaine. La Révolution: La Conquête jacobine (T. II). Paris: Librairie Hachette.

  31. Thiers, M.A. (1838). Histoire de la Révolution française (T. III). Paris: Furne, Jouvet et Cie; Bruxelles: Meline, Cans et Compagnie.

  32. Thiers, M.A. (1866). Histoire de la Révolution française (T. I). Paris: Furne, Jouvet et Cie.

  33. van Creveld, M. (1991). The transformation of war. New York: Free Press.

  34. von Bismarck, F.W. (1820). Feld Dienst der Reuterey vom Verfasser ber Vorlesungen über die Taktik der Reuterey. Karlsruhe: C.F. Müllers Hofbuchhandlung.

  35. von Decker, C. (1822). Der kleine Krieg, im Geiste der neueren Kriegführung. Berlin; Posen: Ernst Siegfried Mittler.

  36. Wallon, H.A. (1889). Les représentants du peuple en mission et la justice révolutionnaire dans les départements en l'an II: La Vendée (1793-1794). Paris: Librairie Hachette Et Cie.

  37. Weber, M. (1922). Grundriss der Sozialökonomik: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Abt. III). Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck.

  38. Zedong, M. (1992). Mao's road to power: Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949: The New Stage, August 1937-1938 (Vol. VI). New York; London: M.E. Sharpe.

  39. Hrytskevych, A. (2011). The struggle for Ukraine, 1917-1921. [In Russian]. Minsk: Sovremennaia Shkola.

  40. Red Terror in the South of Russia. (2013). [In Russian]. Moscow: AIRIS-Press.

  41. Red Terror through the Eyes of Eyewitnesses. (2010). [In Russian]. Moscow: AIRIS-Press.

  42. Savchenko, V. (2006). Twelve wars for Ukraine. [In Russian]. Kharkiv: Folio.

  43. Savchenko, V. (2011). Atamanshchyna. [In Russian]. Kharkiv: Folio.

  44. Tukhachevskii, M. (1964). Selected works: 1919-1927 (Vol. 1). [In Russian]. Moscow: Military Publishing House of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR.

Received 18.07.2025

On the methods of the disciplinary stage of social revolution: guerrilla experience in France and Ukraine

stmm. 2025 (3): 124-137

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/sociology2025.03.124

Full text: https://stmm.in.ua/archive/ukr/2025-3/8.pdf

RODION PRYSHVA, Master of public management and administration; PhD student at the Institute of Sociology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Department of History and Theory of Sociology) (12, Shovkovychna St., Kyiv, 01021)

pryshvarodion@gmail.com

https://orcid.org/0009-0001-1933-3329

The article examines the process of the disciplinary system’s formation within counter-insurgency operations, using the suppression of the Vendée uprising (1793–1796) and the fight against peasant resistance in Ukraine in 1918–1922 as examples. Central attention is given to M. Foucault’s concept of the panopticon, which is interpreted as a model for the transformation of insurgent space from a state of “polyopticon” — a regime of mutual observation and support between insurgents and the local population — into a regime of centralized surveillance and suppression. The author demonstrates how, in conditions of revolutionary anomie and civil war, new forms of power control are created: military, ideological, and police structures gradually seize the initiative from the insurgents, isolating the population from partisan formations and forming a “disciplinary cordon”. Comparative analysis reveals both soft forms of influence (as in the case of General Hoche in France) and harsh forms — characteristic of Bolshevik practices combining terror and administrative-police control (panopticon). The work emphasizes that success in combating guerrillas depends not only on the strength of the coercive apparatus but also on the state’s ability to penetrate the microphysics of everyday life, imposing its network of surveillance, normalization, and control. In conclusion, the article discusses the prospects for the development of guerrilla warfare in the context of technological changes, especially concerning the proliferation of unmanned surveillance systems, which call into question the sustainability of traditional insurgent potential in high-tech societies.

Keywords: guerrilla, small war, partisans, Michel Foucault, Mao Zedong, Lazare Hoche, Lenin, Hans Delbrück, Makhno, Vendée, Red Terror, cordon strategy, revolution, otamanshchyna (banditry/warlordism), Chekists, civil war, polyopticon, panopticon

References:

  1. Arnold, J.R. (2009). Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq. New York: Bloomsbury.

  2. Cabanès, A., Nass, L. (1906). La Névrose révolutionnaire. Paris: Société française d'imprimerie et de librairie.

  3. Callwell, C.E. (1899). Small Wars Their Principles and Practice. London: Harrison and Sons.

  4. Cochin, A. (1921). Les sociétés de pensée et la démocratie: Études tudes d'histoire révolutionnaire. Paris: Plon-Nourrit.

  5. Comte de La Roche. (1770a). Essai sur la petite guerre (T. I). Paris: Chez Saillant & Nyon.

  6. Comte de La Roche, (1770b). Essai sur la petite guerre (T. II). Paris: Chez Saillant & Nyon.

  7. Corbett, R. (1968). Guerrilla Warfare: From 1939 to the Present Day. London: Guild Publishing.

  8. de Grandmaison, T.-A. (1758). La petite guerre: ou traité du service des troupes légères en campagne. Francfort, Leipsic: Chez Knoch & Esslinger.

  9. de La Croix, A.-F. (1752). Traité de la petite guerre pour les compagnies franches. Paris: Antoine Boudet.

  10. de Pétigny, X. (1908). Un bataillon de volontaires (3e bataillon de Maine-et-Loire), 1792-1796. Angers: Germain et g. Grassin.

  11. de San Juan, F. (1822). Instruccion de guerrilla. Lima: Imprenta del Río.

  12. de Saxe, M. (1756). Les Reveries ou Memoires sur l'art de la guerre de Maurice comte de Saxe. Haye: chez Pierre Gosse Junior.

  13. de Tocquevill, A. (1856). L'ancien régime et la révolution. Paris: Michel Levy Frères.

  14. Delbrück, H. (1920). Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politischen Geschichte: Die Neuzeit (Bd. IV). Berlin: Verlag Stilke.

  15. Durkheim, É. (1926). De la division du travail social. Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan.

  16. Felstead, A., Jewson, N., Walters, S. (2005). Changing Places of Work. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

  17. Foucault, M. (1975). Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison. Paris: Gallimard.

  18. Joes, A.J. (1996). Guerilla Conflict before the Cold War. Westport: Praeger.

  19. Joes, A.J. (2004). Resisting rebellion: the history and politics of counterinsurgency. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.

  20. Laqueur, W. (1977). Guerrilla: a historical and critical study. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

  21. Le Bon, G. (1916). Enseignements psychologiques de la guerre européenne. Paris: Ernest Flammarion.

  22. Lee, W.E., Anthony E. Carlson, A.E., Preston, D.L., Silbey, D. (2021). The Other Face of Battle: America's Forgotten Wars and the Experience of Combat. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190920647.001.0001

  23. Paul, T.V. (1994). Asymmetric conflicts: war initiation by weaker powers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511598746

  24. Pomeroy, W.T. (1968). Guerrilla Warfare and Marxism. New York: International Publishers.

  25. Rüstow, F.W. (1864). Die Lehre vom kleinen Kriege. Zürich: Druck und Verlag von Friedrich Schultheß.

  26. Small Unit Tactics, Including Communications. (1964). Washington: Headquarters, Department of the Army.

  27. Sorokin, P. (1925). The Sociology of Revolution. Philadelphia, London: J.B. Lippincott Company.

  28. Stofflet, E. (1875). Stofflet et la Vendée. Paris: E. Plon et Cie.

  29. Swenson, B.J. (2023). The Dawn of Guerrilla Warfare: Why the Tactics of Insurgents against Napoleon failed in the US Mexican War. Barnsley: Pen and Sword.

  30. Taine, H. (1885). Les origines de la France contemporaine. La Révolution: La Conquête jacobine (T. II). Paris: Librairie Hachette.

  31. Thiers, M.A. (1838). Histoire de la Révolution française (T. III). Paris: Furne, Jouvet et Cie; Bruxelles: Meline, Cans et Compagnie.

  32. Thiers, M.A. (1866). Histoire de la Révolution française (T. I). Paris: Furne, Jouvet et Cie.

  33. van Creveld, M. (1991). The transformation of war. New York: Free Press.

  34. von Bismarck, F.W. (1820). Feld Dienst der Reuterey vom Verfasser ber Vorlesungen über die Taktik der Reuterey. Karlsruhe: C.F. Müllers Hofbuchhandlung.

  35. von Decker, C. (1822). Der kleine Krieg, im Geiste der neueren Kriegführung. Berlin; Posen: Ernst Siegfried Mittler.

  36. Wallon, H.A. (1889). Les représentants du peuple en mission et la justice révolutionnaire dans les départements en l'an II: La Vendée (1793-1794). Paris: Librairie Hachette Et Cie.

  37. Weber, M. (1922). Grundriss der Sozialökonomik: Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Abt. III). Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck.

  38. Zedong, M. (1992). Mao's road to power: Revolutionary Writings 1912-1949: The New Stage, August 1937-1938 (Vol. VI). New York; London: M.E. Sharpe.

  39. Hrytskevych, A. (2011). The struggle for Ukraine, 1917-1921. [In Russian]. Minsk: Sovremennaia Shkola.

  40. Red Terror in the South of Russia. (2013). [In Russian]. Moscow: AIRIS-Press.

  41. Red Terror through the Eyes of Eyewitnesses. (2010). [In Russian]. Moscow: AIRIS-Press.

  42. Savchenko, V. (2006). Twelve wars for Ukraine. [In Russian]. Kharkiv: Folio.

  43. Savchenko, V. (2011). Atamanshchyna. [In Russian]. Kharkiv: Folio.

  44. Tukhachevskii, M. (1964). Selected works: 1919-1927 (Vol. 1). [In Russian]. Moscow: Military Publishing House of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR.

Received 18.07.2025

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