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Holocaust and Genocide Studies 1989 4(2):161-174; doi:10.1093/hgs/4.2.161
© 1989 by United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
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‘Genocide in the 20th Century’

REVOLUTIONARY GENOCIDE: ON THE CAUSES OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE OF 1915 AND THE HOLOCAUST*

ROBERT MELSON

Purdue University West Lafayette, IN

The aim of this essay is to advance the development of a conceptual framework for the study of genocide, by comparing and generalizing from the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide of 1915. Some current explanations of the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide emphasize the ideologies of the perpetrators, the functional exigencies of the organizations of destruction, and the provocative behaviours of the victims. Without denying the importance of such factors, this essay focuses on the revolutionary crises of the state and on the successful modernization and mobilization of traditionally despised minorities as crucial antecedent variables to genocide.

*An earlier version of this paper was presented at the ‘Remembering for the Future’ Conference, Oxford, 10–13 July 1988. I wish to acknowledge the support of the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture; The Truman Institute, Hebrew University; and the Center for Humanistic Studies, Purdue University.


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