Fighting in the Dark: Ideology and State Formation in Post‐Colonial Burma

Abstract

AbstractExtant major approaches to states and revolutions privilege the role of state practices and the character of war‐making in shaping modern state‐making in the Third World. Bringing the role of ideology into this analytical landscape of state‐making, this paper advances an alternative claim that ideological practices shape modern state structures and practices as well as the dynamics of political contention between the state and the revolutions. First, I argue that that intra‐movement ideological dynamics within the nationalist movement can have a profound impact on the structure and practices of the state. Using the writings of the party leaders, memoirs and official publications of the Burmese communist party, I maintain that subtle and specific ideological differences amongst the Burmese leftist movements generated organizational splits and internecine conflicts in the nationalist struggle, which exerted profound influences on the structures and practices of the Burmese state Secondly, relative ideological positions of the state and the revolutionary movements play an important role in shaping the dynamics of contention between the state and revolution. For example, an intimate web of ideological affinity between the nascent Burmese state and the Burmese leftist movements shaped the context and content of political contention between the state and these movements in the post‐colonial Burma. To address these issues empirically, the first part of the paper examines the formation and cementation of organizational linkages amongst Burmese leftist nationalists during the anti‐colonial struggle. The second part of the paper addresses specific and subtle ways in which ideological character and practices of the Burmese state and the Burmese Communist party shaped state practices and state structures in modern Burma as well as the dynamics of political contention between the state and the revolutionary movements.