Resistance movement

A resistance movement is an organized effort by a group of people to oppose or challenge an established authority, such as a government or an occupying power.¹ Such movements may seek to change, reform, or overthrow existing power structures and can employ a range of methods, including nonviolent resistance (such as civil disobedience) and violent or armed struggle.²³⁴ In practice, resistance movements often combine multiple strategies and may operate through different organizations or across distinct phases or geographical areas.²⁵

The Oxford English Dictionary generally defines "resistance" as the action of "resisting, opposing, or withstanding someone or something."⁶ In a political sense, it records the term as referring to "organized (in later use usually covert) opposition to an invading, occupying, or ruling power."⁶ The capitalized form "the Resistance" became widespread during World War II, when it was adopted by multiple movements opposing Axis-occupation, especially the French Resistance formed in June 1940 against German occupying forces.⁶

In contemporary scholarship, resistance is often treated as a broad and contested concept. Mona Lilja argues that resistance can be understood as an "umbrella concept" encompassing everyday, serial and organized forms of resistance, as well as the connection between them.⁷

Resistance movements have appeared in a wide range of political contexts, including opposition to foreign occupation, colonial rule, authoritarian governments, and other established authorities.³ They may operate openly or clandestinely, and can involve formal organizations, loose networks, underground groups, or broader popular mobilizations.³

Scholars have described both armed and unarmed resistance as forms of "collective action" carried out by organized opposition movements, often outside of conventional political channels.²⁸⁹¹⁰ Such movements may represent marginalized, oppressed, or politically excluded groups and are commonly associated with contentious or disruptive politics.² Further, resistance movements are often analyzed as forms of asymmetric conflict, in which weaker actors confront more powerful states, occupying powers, or ruling authorities through strategies intended to raise the costs imposed on the dominant actor.¹¹ Keith D. Dickson argues that resistance is often shaped by "variances, dissimilarities, or inequalities between adversaries," especially when one actor holds significantly more power than the other.¹¹

Their methods vary widely. Some movements rely on nonviolent resistance, including civil disobedience, strikes, boycotts, demonstrations, and other forms of non-cooperation.¹² Others engage in armed resistance, including guerrilla warfare, sabotage, or insurgency.² In practice, the boundary between armed and unarmed resistance is often blurry and fluid, as resistance movements may combine violent and nonviolent methods, or shift between them over time.²

The classification of resistance movements is often contested. States may describe violent resistance movements as terrorists or insurgents, while supporters may describe the same actors as liberation movements or freedom fighters.³ Therefore, terminology may vary depending on political context, legal status and perspective.

Nonviolent resistance refers to collective methods of opposition that challenge authority without the use of physical violence. It has been defined as "organized popular resistance to government authority" that "eschews the use of weapons of modern warfare."¹³ Scholars have commonly adopted Gene Sharp's categorization of nonviolent action into three broad categories: protest and persuasion, non-cooperation, and intervention.¹⁴ These methods can include civil disobedience, public persuasion, demonstrations, marches, strikes, boycotts, hunger strikes, and other forms of collective action.¹⁴² In resistance movements, nonviolent methods may be used independently or alongside other strategies, including armed resistance.² Historical examples of nonviolent resistance include the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, the Salt March, and parts of the Arab Spring¹².

Violent resistance refers to methods of opposition that involve the use or threat of physical force against a government, occupying power, or other established authority. In scholarship, violence is often distinguished from nonviolent action by infliction of "physical damage to persons or property."¹⁵ Methods of violent resistance can include armed struggle, guerrilla warfare, sabotage, insurgency, assassination, and attacks on military, police, or state infrastructure.²¹⁵ The classification of violent resistance remains contested, especially in the context of armed groups within national liberation movements, such as in Algeria, Palestine or Ireland.⁴ Supporters may describe armed groups as liberation movements or freedom fighters, while states and opponents may classify the same groups as insurgents, rebels, militants, or terrorists.⁴ Historical examples of violent resistance include partisan warfare during WWII and various guerrilla movements in contexts of colonial rule, such as the National Liberation Front during the Algerian War of Independence.

Labor-based resistance refers to forms of opposition that are organized through workplaces, labor relations, or workers' collective action. Resistance tactics may be directed against employers, states, occupying powers, or wider political and economic systems. It can take collective forms, such as strikes, slowdowns, work-to-rule campaigns, workplace occupations, boycotts, as well as more individualized or informal forms, including absenteeism, work avoidance, sabotage, and other forms of non-cooperation.¹⁶¹⁷ Some labor-based tactics may also overlap with forms of economic resistance, including boycotts and tax refusal. James C. Scott's concept of "everyday forms of resistance" has been used to describe covert and informal practices, including "foot-dragging, dissimulations, false compliance, feigned ignorance, desertion [...], sabotage," which he describes as "the ordinary means of class struggle."¹⁷

Within resistance movements, labor-based tactics can disrupt production and administration within a state.¹⁸ Because states, colonial economies, and imperial modes of production often depend on the organization and control of labor, workers may be able to exercise political leverage by withdrawing or disrupting their labor.¹⁹ Labor-based resistance can therefore function both as an economic tactic and as a political strategy of resistance movements.

Labor-based resistance has appeared in anti-colonial struggles as well as anti-apartheid organizing.^202122232425

In the Palestinian context, general strikes have formed part of broader resistance strategies in several historical periods. The 1936 general strike marked the opening phase of the 1936-1939 Arab revolt against British rule and Zionist settlement, while Land Day in 1976 involved a general strike against land confiscation.²⁰ Scholars have described strikes, boycotts, tax refusal, and work stoppages during the First Intifada as a broader strategy of economic resistance against Israeli occupation.¹⁸²² Dana describes this strategy as "economic warfare," involving commercial strikes, boycotts of Israeli goods, withholding tax payments, and refusal to work in the Israeli marketplace and settlements.²² One well-known example was the Beit Sahour tax strike of 1989, in which residents of Beit Sahour refused to pay taxes to the Israeli Civil Administration.²¹ Coordinated work stoppages have also been discussed in relation to the Palestinian general strike of May 2021²⁶, which briefly demonstrated the disruptive potential of Palestinian labor across Israel and the occupied territories.¹⁸²²

In South Africa, labor-based resistance formed an important part of anti-apartheid organizing. The apartheid labor system relied on a racially divided workforce and restricted African workers' rights to organize, bargain collectively and strike, while utilizing mechanisms such as migrant labor, pass laws, and state-controlled workplace committees to regulate black labor and outlaw strike action.²⁵²⁴ Black workers nevertheless used strikes, stoppages, union organizing, and stay-aways to challenge both employers and the Apartheid state.²⁵²⁴

The 1973 Durban strikes in which more than 60,000 workers participated, marked an important turning point in the revival of independent African trade unionism²⁴²⁵ as it demonstrated how "vulnerable [...] South African economy was to resistance by black workers."²³²⁷ During the 1976 uprisings and subsequent urban unrest, mass strikes and stay-aways involved more than 500,000 Africans across South Africa. Scholars describe the following Wiehahn and Riekert comissions²⁸ as part of the apartheid state's "strategy aimed at restoring political and economic stability" by incorporating sections of the black workforce into more effective mechanisms of labor control, effectively resulting in more repression for black workers.²⁴²⁵ In the following years, black labor movements became increasingly central to anti-Apartheid resistance and continued to place pressure on employers through continuous strikes, consumer boycotts, and mass stay-aways, forcing major concessions by employers.²³²⁷ Hudson-Allison argues that the Apartheid economy depended on a cooperative black labor force and that organized black labor helped bring Apartheid structures "to its knees" during the 1970s and 1980s.²³ This was reflected in the formation of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), unifying around 500,000 workers and becoming an important force in the struggle against Apartheid.²⁷

On the lawfulness of armed resistance movements in international law, there has been a dispute between states since at least 1899, when the first major codification of the laws of war in the form of a series of international treaties took place. In the Preamble to the 1899 Hague Convention II on Land War, the Martens Clause was introduced as a compromise wording for the dispute between the Great Powers who considered francs-tireurs to be unlawful combatants subject to execution on capture and smaller states who maintained that they should be considered lawful combatants.²⁹³⁰

More recently the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, referred in Article 1. Paragraph 4 to armed conflicts "... in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes..." This phraseology, according USA that refused to ratify the Protocol, contains multiple ambiguities that cloud the issue of who is or is not a legitimate combatant:³¹ ultimately, in US Government opinion the distinction is just a political judgment.

Some definitions of resistance movement have proved controversial. Hence depending on the perspective of a state's government, a resistance movement may or may not be labelled a terrorist group based on whether the members of a resistance movement are considered lawful or unlawful combatants and whether they are recognized as having a right to resist occupation.³²

According to Joint Publication 1-02, the United States Department of Defense defines a resistance movement as "an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to resist the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability". In strict military terminology, a resistance movement is simply that; it seeks to resist (change) the policies of a government or occupying power. This may be accomplished through violent or non-violent means. In this view, a resistance movement is specifically limited to changing the nature of current power, not to overthrow it; and the correct military term for removing or overthrowing a government is an insurgency. However, in reality a number of resistance movements have aimed to displace a particular ruler, especially if that ruler has gained or retained power illegally.

The following examples are of groups that have been considered or would identify themselves as groups. These are mostly, but not exclusively, of armed resistance movements. For movements and phases of activity involving non-violent methods, see civil resistance and nonviolent resistance.

• The Maccabees were first-century BC Jewish rebel warriors who fought against the occupying Seleucid Empire in Judea, as described in the deuterocanonical Books of the Maccabees.³³
• The Sicarii (66-73) were a first-century Jewish movement opposing Roman occupation of the Jewish Promised Land.³⁴
• The Yellow Turbans (184–205) were peasant rebels against the Eastern Han dynasty, led by Zhang Jue, was crushed by the lack of co-ordination with other Yellow Turban groups as well as destabilization.
• The Abbasid Revolution (747-750) overthrow of the Umayyad dynasty under Abu Muslim, which was caused by discrimination against non-Arab Muslims and government corruption.
• The Mamluks were Turkic slaves who overthrew the Ayyubid dynasty (1341).
• In opposition to British rule in Ireland and the subsequent Plantations of Ireland, the native Gaelic population, at times with and against the Hiberno-Normans lords, launched the Bruce campaign in Ireland (1315-1318), the Desmond Rebellions (1569–1573 & 1579–1583), the Nine Years' War, also known as Tyrone's Rebellion, (1593-1603), the Irish Rebellion of 1641 & the subsequent Irish Confederate Wars (1641-1653), the Williamite War in Ireland (1688–1691), the Irish Rebellion of 1798, also known as the United Irishmen Rebellion, and the Tithe War (1831-1836).³⁵
• The Jacobite risings (1689-1746) were a series of rebellions, uprisings, and wars to reinstate the Stuart dynasty.
• The American Continental forces of the American Revolutionary War (1765–1783) were essentially a resistance movement against the British Empire.
• Indigenous Australians in the early history of Australia (1788–1850), including the resistance led by Pemulwuy (d. 1802),³⁶ during the 1851-1900 period by Jandamarra (fl. 1894-97), and others.
• The Serbian rebel army against the Ottoman Empire in the First Serbian Uprising (1804-13)
• Resistance movements against France also emerged during the Napoleonic Wars
  • The 1808 invasion of Spain by Bonaparte sparked a resistance movement composed mostly of the lower classes, who felt that the nobility was simply allowing themselves to fall under French control. Lord Wellington remarked that it was extraordinary that the French had managed to remain in the country for so long (about 4 years).
  • Landsturm – German resistance groups fighting against the French in the Napoleonic Wars.
• Certain Native Americans during Manifest destiny.
  • Tsali – Cherokee tribal member who led a small band of Cherokee people against the United States military during the Trail of Tears era. Executed in exchange for the survival of his band, the band were integrated into the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
  • Osceola – Seminole chief who was influential. Resisted deportation during the period of Indian removal. Led a number of successes until being captured by the United States during faux peace talks, died a few months later in prison.
• During the American Civil War, there were also resistance movements on both sides
  • Bushwhackers were Confederate guerrillas who engaged in raids, robberies, and massacres against the Union forces and affiliated citizens. Continued resisting for some years after the American Civil War ended. Responsible for the Lawrence Massacre
  • Jayhawkers were Union guerrillas who engaged in the same acts as the bushwhackers did, they were also active during Bleeding Kansas, most prominent member was John Brown responsible for the Pottawatomie Massacre and John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry.
• Carbonari – 19th-century Italian movement resisting Austrian or Bourbon rule.
• The Polish National Government – Underground Polish supreme authority during the January Uprising against Russian occupation of Poland. In 1863–1864, it was a real shadow government supported by majority of Poles, who even paid taxes for it, and was a significant problem for the Okhrana, the secret police of the Russian Empire.
• The Boxer Movement were a secret group, operating in China between the 1880s and early 1900s, that powered the Boxer Rebellion against foreign occupiers.
• Andrés Avelino Cáceres' resistance movement against invading Chilean forces during the War of the Pacific.
• The Kataas-Taasang, Ka-Galang-galangang, Katipunan ng mga Anak Ng Bayan (KKK) was an organization in the Philippines that instigated the Philippine Revolution in 1896 against the Spanish colonials and resulted in the dissolution of the Republic of Biak na Bato and the exile of the Philippine Government, headed by Emillo Aguinaldo.

• Filipino guerrilla units after official end of Philippine–American War (1902–1913)
• Chinese Communist Party
  • Chinese Red Army
  • Chinese Soviet Republic
  • Communist-controlled China (1927–1949)
  • Fujian People's Government
  • Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region
• Charlemagne Peralte and his Cacos rebels who resisted the United States occupation of Haiti.
• Freikorps
• Ukrainian forces in the Ukrainian War of Independence (1917-1921)
• Dervish Movement (1899-1920)
• House of Saud
  • Ikhwan
• Forest Guerrillas (1921–1922)
• Augusto César Sandino led a rebellion against the United States occupation of Nicaragua.
• Lwów Eaglets
• Black Lions (1936)
• Irish Republican Army (1918–1922)
• Turkish national movement
  • Association for the Defense of the Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia
• TIGR (1927–1941)
• Ustaše – Croatian nationalist and fascist resistance movement against the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
• White movement and its organizations in the 1920s–1930s:
  • Brotherhood of Russian Truth
  • Russian All-Military Union
• Green armies (1918–1921)
• Committee for the Independence of Georgia

• Post-WWII anti-fascism (ongoing)

• Gardam, Judith Gail (1993). Non-combatant Immunity as a Norm of International Humanitarian, Martinus Nijhoff. ISBN 0-7923-2245-2.
• Ticehurst, Rupert. "The Martens Clause and the Laws of Armed Conflict Archived 2007-04-15 at the Wayback Machine" 30 April 1997, International Review of the Red Cross no. 317, pp. 125–34. ISSN 1560-7755