Foundations of the Vanguard: the origins of leftist rebel groups
| Published date | 01 June 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13540661221140099 |
| Author | Megan A. Stewart |
| Date | 01 June 2023 |
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https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661221140099
European Journal of
International Relations
2023, Vol. 29(2) 398 –426
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/13540661221140099
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Foundations of the Vanguard:
the origins of leftist rebel
groups
Megan A. Stewart
University of Michigan, USA
Abstract
What explains the emergence of leftist rebel groups? I provide one explanation for
their origins in colonized and recently decolonized countries during the Cold War. In
this context, I argue that imperial assimilatory education programs terminating in the
metropole facilitated the rise of a would-be rebel leadership cadre committed to leftist
ideas and connected to leftist activists, and this cadre ultimately made the formation of
a leftist rebel group more likely. Relying on archival and primary materials, I focus on
variation in educational experiences of rebel leaders in Eritrea’s Independence War to
qualitatively evaluate different explanations for the formation of groups with different
ideologies. I probe generalizability quantitatively with a global sample of civil wars, as
well as qualitatively with an overview of cases colonized by Portugal using archival data
from three countries.
Keywords
Imperialism, conflict, Cold War, ideology, independence, revolution
What explains the emergence of leftist rebel groups during the Cold War? Conflicts fea-
turing leftist rebel groups often became flash points for the Cold War outside of Europe.
When victorious, leftist groups altered the precarious balance of global power, and occa-
sionally inspired imitators far beyond the epicenter of contestation.1 On a domestic level,
successful leftist rebel groups were often harbingers of some of the most enduring forms
of political transformation.2 Yet, during this period, there was significant variation in
rebel organizations’ ideologies.
Corresponding author:
Megan A. Stewart, University of Michigan, 735 S State St., Weill Hall, Ann Arbor, MI 48104, USA.
Email: mgnstwrt@umich.edu
1140099EJT0010.1177/13540661221140099European Journal of International RelationsStewart
research-article2022
Article
Stewart 399
Works that address why rebel organizations adopt certain ideologies have typically
found support for explanations relating to instrumental calculations about resources,3
concerns about how to mobilize a population,4 or variation in the social class of leaders.5
Other research focuses on a single country or group,6 or explains variation in rebel ide-
ologies in democratic contexts.7
In contrast to these works, I focus on countries colonized during or after the conclu-
sion of the Second World War and I provide one explanation for the formation of leftist
rebel groups in these places during the Cold War. In this context, I argue that leftist rebel
groups were more likely to emerge where empires enforced assimilationist education
programs terminating in the metropole.8 This is because some colonized persons in
assimilatory language programs often held expectations for social advancement within
the imperial system, but these expectations were quickly dashed upon arrival to the
imperial metropole. For educated, colonized individuals, the imperial metropole magni-
fied the depth and permanence of the subjugation of colonized people collectively, and
they experienced discrimination individually. Recognizing the degree of individual and
group-level discrimination, educated, colonized people in the metropole turned to each
other for support, forming strong bonds with similarly educated people from the same
colonized places, or other colonized places across the empire. At the same time, leftist
ideas and activists were highly prevalent in metropoles. Leftist ideas provided an attrac-
tive, anti-imperialist counter-worldview to educated, colonized persons, and leftist activ-
ists often formed another supportive community for colonized individuals in the
metropole. The result of these interactions was a relatively cohesive vanguard of edu-
cated, colonized individuals who shared a leftist worldview and had established connec-
tions with leftist activists abroad who could help sustain an insurgency. This vanguard
made the emergence of leftist rebel groups more likely. In contrast, leaders of rebel
groups who did not experience assimilatory education lacked some or all of these experi-
ences. As a result, in the absence of assimilatory language programs terminating in the
metropole, a leftist vanguard was less likely to form, and correspondingly, so too were
leftist rebel groups.
I evaluate this explanation by exploring the origins of the two major rebel groups in
Eritrea’s independence war: one was leftist (the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, or
EPLF), while the other was not (the Eritrean Liberation Front, or ELF). I focus on the
Eritrean case because it provides some mostly orthogonal temporal variation in the
implementation of an assimilatory language program. Before both rebel groups formed,
Ethiopia changed its education policies in Eritrea for reasons unrelated to the presence of
Eritrean rebel groups. In doing so, Ethiopia exposed some would-be rebel leaders to
assimilatory education, but not others. This language program was relatively unbundled
from other policies associated with greater Ethiopian control. As a result of this mostly
orthogonal temporal variation, I can better evaluate my argument against other explana-
tions. I use primary and secondary materials as well as archival data to do so. I find that
individuals who were not part of an assimilatory language program did not form a leftist
rebel group, though they had access to leftist ideas. Many of the leaders of the leftist
EPLF, however, were part of Ethiopia’s assimilatory language program and completed
some or all of their tertiary degree in the metropole.
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