Reactionary

Reactionary (pronounced ree-ak-shuh-ner-ee)

(1) Of, pertaining to, marked by, or favoring the politics of reaction, applied especially (if not always accurately) to extreme conservatism or right-wing formations & individuals opposing social change or measures labeled as progressive.

(2) An individual associated with this position.

1830–1840:  From the French réactionnaire (one in favor of narrow conservatism or of a return to a previous social or political state (the colloquial was abbreviation reac)).  The construct was re- + -act- + -ion- + -ary.  Reaction was from the Old French reaction, from the Latin reāctiō, from the verb reagō, the construct being re- (again) + agō (to act).

The re- prefix was from the Middle English re-, from the circa 1200 Old French re-, from the Latin re- & red- (back; anew; again; against), from the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (again), a metathetic alteration of wert- (to turn).  It displaced the native English ed- & eft-.  A hyphen is not normally included in words formed using this prefix, except when the absence of a hyphen would (1) make the meaning unclear, (2) when the word with which the prefix is combined begins with a capital letter, (3) when the word with which the is combined with begins with another “re”, (4) when the word with which the prefix is combined with begins with “e”, (5) when the word formed is identical in form to another word in which re- does not have any of the senses listed above.  As late as the early twentieth century, the dieresis was sometimes used instead of a hyphen (eg reemerge) but this is now rare except when demanded for historic authenticity or if there’s an attempt deliberately to affect the archaic.  Re- may (and has) been applied to almost any verb and previously irregular constructions appear regularly in informal use; the exception is all forms of “be” and the modal verbs (can, should etc).  Although it seems certain the origin of the Latin re- is the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (which has a parallel in Umbrian re-), beyond that it’s uncertain and while it seems always to have conveyed the general sense of "back" or "backwards", there were instances where the precise was unclear and the prolific productivity in Classical Latin tended make things obscure.  The Latin prefix rĕ- was from the Proto-Italic wre (again) and had a parallel in the Umbrian re- but the etymology was always murky.   In use, there was usually at least the hint of the sense "back" or "backwards" but so widely was in used in Classical Latin and beyond that the exact meaning is sometimes not clear.  Etymologists suggest the origin lies either in (1) a metathesis (the transposition of sounds or letters in a word) of the primitive Indo-European wert- (to turn) or (2) the primitive Indo-European ure- (back), which was related to the Proto-Slavic rakъ (in the sense of “looking backwards”).

Act was from the Middle English acte, from the Old French acte, from the Latin ācta (register of events) (plural of āctum (decree, law)), from agere (to do, to act), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European héǵeti and related to the German Akte (file); it partially displaced deed (which endured in its other senses), from the Old English dǣd (act, deed).  The –ion suffix was from the Middle English -ioun, from the Old French -ion, from the Latin -iō (genitive -iōnis).  It was appended to a perfect passive participle to form a noun of action or process, or the result of an action or process.  The suffix –ary (of or pertaining to) was a back-formation from unary and similar, from the Latin adjectival suffixes -aris and -arius; appended to many words, often nouns, to make an adjectival form and use was not restricted to words of Latin origin.  Reactionary is an adjective & noun; the noun plural is reactionaries.

"Reactionary" is used of social behavior often because it's thought to mean "reacting impulsively or badly".  

Because the jargon of political science is of little interest to most sensible folk, it’s not surprising the word reactionary is often misapplied, used to mean “acting in response to an external stimulus”, a condition properly described as “reactive”.  It occurs even among those who should know better, a marker of the decline in the quality of journalists and the extinction of the species of sub-editors who used to correct errors prior to publication.  Although not a related mistake, of note also is the modern buzz-word “proactive” (formed by analogy with “reactive”), used in the sense of distinguishing between prevention and cure although by overuse it’s become clichéd and seems at least superfluous given “active” would usually do as well.  It shows no sign of going away, like that other unhappy pairing of without and within, “without” used as an adverb or noun to mean “outside” when “within and beyond” would be more elegant.  Dictionaries of course concede this use of “without” is both correct and enjoys a long history and none comment on the elegance of a phrase and the two can be used in conjunction as long as the different senses are respected.  The UK Foreign Office for example explained in a 1945 memo that “…the Soviet Government will try a policy of collaboration with ourselves and the US (and China) within the framework of a world organization or without it, if it fails to materialize.”

Even reactive is nuanced.  As used in science it refers usually to a relationship between two substances, one guaranteed to produce a certain reaction if in some way interacting with another.  In general use reactive refers to the consequences rather than the chemistry which induces the reaction; while two chemicals can be guaranteed to be reactive upon contact, in interactions between people, the same circumstances can sometimes produce a reaction, in other cases there is none.  To be reactive can thus be either inevitable among substances or dependent on an individual’s state of mine.

Porträt des Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Prince of Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein in Ritterorden des Godenen vlies (cerimonial robes of the Order of the Golden Fleece) (1836), oil on canvas by Johann Nepomuk Ender (1793-1854).

In political science, the term reactionary is applied with rather more precision than in general use where, like fascist, it’s tended to become a general term of disapprobation for those who espouse an opposing view.  When applied with some academic rigor, it refers properly to the view that a previous political state of society is desirable and that action should be taken to return to those arrangements.  A reactionary is thus different from a conservative who wishes to keep things as they are but perhaps (at least sometimes) synonymous with ultra-conservative or arch-conservative, the classic example in politics being Prince Klemens von Metternich (1773–1859; foreign minister or chancellor of the Austrian Empire 1809-1848) who constructed an intricate model of Europe which was design to avoid another unpleasantness (for the ruling class) like the French revolution (1789) and its aftermath.  It’s usually thought of as somewhere on the spectrum of conservatism although there are logical (as well as linguistic) problems with that and either in theory or historic practice, reactionary ideologies, although radical, haven’t always been the most extreme of the breed.  Even that sort of terminology wasn’t reliably indicative of anything except what the author intended, Sir Garfield Barwick (1903–1997; Chief Justice of Australia 1964-1981) giving his autobiography the title A Radical Tory (1995), a few reviewers enjoying the opportunity to point out he was neither.

Thou shalt not: Pope Pius IX and friends.

In the UK there were of course already the Tories but it was the French Revolution from which English gained the descriptors "conservative", "right-wing" and "reactionary".  Conservative was from the French conservateur and was applied to those deputies of the French assembly which supported the monarchy (ie they wish to conserve that which was).  The term right-wing came to be used because when the Estates General was summoned in 1789, liberal deputies (the Third Estate) sat usually to left of the presiding officer's chair while the (variously usually either conservative or reactionary) members of the aristocracy (the Second Estate) sat to the right (the clerics were the First Estate and it’s from here is derived the later idea of the press as the Fourth Estate).  Reactionary was from the late eighteenth century French réactionnaire (from réaction (reaction)) and was used to denote "a ideology directed to return the structure of the state and the operation of society to a previous condition of affairs".  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) dates the first use of the word in English to 1799 and political scientists have managed to coin variations like reactionist and even the (thankfully rare) reactionaryism.  In theology, the classic reactionary was Pope Pius IX (Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti, 1792–1878; pope 1846-1878) who in 1864 published Syllabus Errorum (Syllabus of Errors), a still controversial document which listed all the ideas of modernity which His Holiness thought most appalling and which should be abandoned because the old ways are the best.  Had he lived, his Holiness would have noted with approval the entry in that manual curmudgeons, Henry Fowler's (1858–1933) A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926): "The word derives its pejorative sense from the conviction, once firmly held but now badly shaken, that all progress is necessarily good."

React

React (pronounced ree-akt)

(1) To act in response to an agent or influence.

(2) To act reciprocally upon each other, as two things.

(3) To act in opposition, as against some force.

(4) To respond to a stimulus in a particular manner.

(5) In physics, to exert an equal force in the opposite direction to an acting force; to act in a reverse direction or manner, especially so as to return to a prior condition.

(6) In chemistry, to act upon each other; to exercise a reciprocal or a reverse effect, as two or more chemical agents; to act in opposition.

(7) In chemistry, to cause or undergo a chemical reaction.

(8) In the hyphenated form re-act, to act or again perform.

(9) To return an impulse or impression; in Internet use, to post a reaction (now often in the form of an emoji), indicating how one feels about a posted message.

1635–1645: From the early Modern English react (to exert, as a thing acted upon, an opposite action upon the agent).  The construct was re- + act, thought to have been modeled on the Medieval Latin reagere, the construct being re- + agere (to drive, to do).  Act was from the Middle English acte, from the Old French acte, from the Latin ācta (register of events), the plural of āctum (decree, law), from agere (to do, to act), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European héǵeti and related to the German Akte (file); it partially displaced deed, from the Old English dǣd (act, deed) which endured and (especially in law), flourished in parallel.  The re- prefix was from the Middle English re-, from the circa 1200 Old French re-, from the Latin re- & red- (back; anew; again; against), from the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (again), a metathetic alteration of wert- (to turn).  It displaced the native English ed- & eft-.  A hyphen is not normally included in words formed using this prefix, except when the absence of a hyphen would (1) make the meaning unclear, (2) when the word with which the prefix is combined begins with a capital letter, (3) when the word with which the is combined with begins with another “re”, (4) when the word with which the prefix is combined with begins with “e”, (5) when the word formed is identical in form to another word in which re- does not have any of the senses listed above.  As late as the early twentieth century, the dieresis was sometimes used instead of a hyphen (eg reemerge) but this is now rare except when demanded for historic authenticity or if there’s an attempt deliberately to affect the archaic.  Re- may (and has) been applied to almost any verb and previously irregular constructions appear regularly in informal use; the exception is all forms of “be” and the modal verbs (can, should etc).  Although it seems certain the origin of the Latin re- is the primitive Indo-European wre & wret- (which has a parallel in Umbrian re-), beyond that it’s uncertain and while it seems always to have conveyed the general sense of "back" or "backwards", there were instances where the precise was unclear and the prolific productivity in Classical Latin tended make things obscure.  The Latin prefix rĕ- was from the Proto-Italic wre (again) and had a parallel in the Umbrian re- but the etymology was always murky.   In use, there was usually at least the hint of the sense "back" or "backwards" but so widely was in used in Classical Latin and beyond that the exact meaning is sometimes not clear.  Etymologists suggest the origin lies either in (1) a metathesis (the transposition of sounds or letters in a word) of the primitive Indo-European wert- (to turn) or (2) the primitive Indo-European ure- (back), which was related to the Proto-Slavic rakъ (in the sense of “looking backwards”).

The hyphenated form re-act (to act or again perform) began to develop during the 1650s (although the hyphen wasn’t de rigueur for decades) and there’s evidence to suggest there was often either an exaggerated pronunciation of the “re-“ or a slight pause between syllables to distinguish it from react.  Forms like overreact & overreaction (1928), interreact, interreaction (1820s), reactivate (1902 & reactivation etc were coined as required.  React is a noun & verb, reactive is an adjective, reactor, reaction & reactant are nouns, reactionary is a noun & adjective, reactivate, reacted & reacting are verbs,; the noun plural is reacts.

Lindsay Lohan reacting, demonstrating her emotional range (left to right:  happy, surprised, terrified and despairing).

The noun reactant (a reacting thing) came from chemistry and dates from 1901; as an adjective it was noted in the literature by 1911 although it may have been in oral use for some time and the noun reactance had been in the vocabulary of science since at least 1893.  The noun reactor (one that reacts) was a standard entry in the books of Latin instruction by 1825 but came into common use in the electrical industry after 1915 to describe “coil or other piece of equipment which provides reactance in a circuit”.  The word is now most commonly associated with nuclear energy, the reactor technically the component in a power-plant, submarine etc, where the nuclear reactions are contained but in the popular imagination often used of the power-generating installations to describe the entire facility.  The adjective reactive dates from 1712 in the sense of “a repercussive, echoing” although that use is long obsolete.  It was re-purposed in the early nineteenth century to mean “caused by a reaction” and by 1888 as “susceptible to (chemical) reaction” and in chemistry the related forms were reactively, reactiveness & reactivity, the words required as new chemicals and elements were subjected to experiments determining the behavior when exposed to others.

The noun reaction (action in resistance or response to another action or power), although later much used in chemistry, dates from the language of physics & dynamics in the 1640s and came frequently to be seen in discussions of politics and international relations.  It was modeled on the French réaction, from the older Italian reattione, from the Medieval Latin reactionem (nominative reactio), a noun of action formed in Late Latin from the past-participle stem of Latin reagere.  In chemistry it was of course invaluable when describing “a mutual or reciprocal action of chemical agents upon each other” and it was the standard noun thus used by 1836.  The more general sense of "action or feeling in response" (to something said, an event etc) was from the early twentieth century.  The phrase reaction time (time elapsing between the action of an external stimulus and the giving of a signal in reply) was a creation of experimental science and first documented in 1874; it was later widely used (both as a precise measure and something indicative) in fields as varied as zoology, sport and electoral behavior.  Sometimes, the experiments to measure reaction times were conducted in a reaction chamber.

Porträt des Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Prince of Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein in Ritterorden des Godenen vlies (cerimonial robes of the Order of the Golden Fleece) (1836), oil on canvas by Johann Nepomuk Ender (1793-1854).

The adjective reactionary (of or pertaining to political reaction, tending to revert from a more to a less advanced policy) dates from 1831 and was on the model of the French réactionnaire.  It was part of Karl Marx's (1818-1883) standard set of descriptive terms by 1858, used to convey the idea of “tending toward reversing existing tendencies” and was the opposite of the ”revolutionary”.  The classic reactionary era is now that created by the Congress of Vienna (1514-1815) when the old monarchies contrived to ensure they wouldn’t again be threatened by something like the French Revolution (1789).  So dominant did the use in politics become that the use in science (of or pertaining to a chemical or other reaction) became rare.  In political science, the term reactionary is applied with rather more precision than in general use where, like fascist, it’s tended to become a general term of disapprobation for those who espouse an opposing view.  When applied with some academic rigor, it refers properly to the view that a previous political state of society is desirable and that action should be taken to return to those arrangements.  A reactionary is thus different from a conservative who wishes to keep things as they are but perhaps (at least sometimes) synonymous with ultra-conservative or arch-conservative, the classic example in politics being Prince Klemens von Metternich (1773–1859; foreign minister or chancellor of the Austrian Empire 1809-1848) who constructed an intricate model of Europe which was design to avoid another unpleasantness (for the ruling class) like the French revolution (1789) and its aftermath.  It’s usually thought of as somewhere on the spectrum of conservatism although there are logical (as well as linguistic) problems with that and either in theory or historic practice, reactionary ideologies, although radical, haven’t always been the most extreme of the breed.  Even that sort of terminology wasn’t reliably indicative of anything except what the author intended, Sir Garfield Barwick (1903–1997; Chief Justice of Australia 1964-1981) giving his autobiography the title A Radical Tory (1995), a few reviewers enjoying the opportunity to point out he was neither.

Thou shalt not: Pope Pius IX and friends.

In the UK there were of course already the Tories but it was the French Revolution from which English gained the descriptors "conservative", "right-wing" and "reactionary".  Conservative was from the French conservateur and was applied to those deputies of the French assembly which supported the monarchy (ie they wish to conserve that which was).  The term right-wing came to be used because when the Estates General was summoned in 1789, liberal deputies (the Third Estate) sat usually to left of the presiding officer's chair while the (variously usually either conservative or reactionary) members of the aristocracy (the Second Estate) sat to the right (the clerics were the First Estate and it’s from here is derived the later idea of the press as the Fourth Estate).  Reactionary was from the late eighteenth century French réactionnaire (from réaction (reaction)) and was used to denote "a ideology directed to return the structure of the state and the operation of society to a previous condition of affairs".  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) dates the first use of the word in English to 1799 and political scientists have managed to coin variations like reactionist and even the (thankfully rare) reactionaryism.  In theology, the classic reactionary was Pope Pius IX (Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti, 1792–1878; pope 1846-1878) who in 1864 published Syllabus Errorum (Syllabus of Errors), a still controversial document which listed all the ideas of modernity which His Holiness thought most appalling and which should be abandoned because the old ways are the best.  Had he lived, his Holiness would have noted with approval the entry in that manual curmudgeons, Henry Fowler's (1858–1933) A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926): "The word derives its pejorative sense from the conviction, once firmly held but now badly shaken, that all progress is necessarily good."

Bolshevik & Menshevik

Bolshevik (pronounced bohl-shuh-vik, bol-shuh-vik or buhl-shi-vyeek (Russian))

(1) A member of the more radical majority of the Social Democratic Party, 1903–1917, advocating, inter alia, the immediate and forceful seizure of power by the proletariat (in Russia and in some factions, beyond); after 1918, a member of the Russian Communist Party.

(2) In the West, historically (mostly early-mid twentieth century), a disparaging or contemptuous term used to refer to an extreme radical or revolutionary (often lowercase).  Applied loosely, it was used (even neutrally) to refer to any member of a Communist party.

(3) In the West a term, sometimes humorous, used as an adjective (often as bolshie) applied to anyone deliberately combative or uncooperative and strident or assertive in their actions or expression of view; used especially where there was a perception of behavior of attitude in conflict with socially constructed expectations (women, nuns etc).

Circa 1915: From the Russian большеви́к (bolʹševík), from большинство́ (bolʹšinstvó) (majority) (those in the majority (Majoritarians)), the construct being bólʾsh(iĭ) (larger, greater (comparative of bolʾshóĭ (large) and thus the sourced of bolʾshinstvó (majority)) + -evik (one that is (a variant of –ovik, the noun suffix)).  The adjective bol'shiy (greater), comparative of the adjective bol'shoy (big, great) is probably most familiar from the famous Bolshoi Ballet and was from the Old Church Slavonic boljiji (larger), from the primitive Indo-European root bel- (strong), source also of the Sanskrit balam (strength, force), the Greek beltion (better), the Phrygian balaios (big, fast), the Old Irish odbal (strong), the Welsh balch (proud) and the Middle Dutch, Low German & Frisian pal (strong, firm).  The popular contraction in the West (and one now remote from its party-political origins) should always be spelled bolshie.  Bolshevik & Bolshevist are nouns & adjectives, Bolshevism is a noun and Bolshevistic an adjective.  The noun plural is Bolsheviks (Bolsheviki in the Russian which is pronounced buhl-shi-vyi-kyee).

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) and bolshie woman Germaine Greer (b 1939) at the Town Bloody Hall debate between the author and a panel of feminists, 30 April 1971, The Town Hall, New York City.  Both were well chosen, Greer was the author of The Female Eunuch (1970) which remains one of feminism's seminal texts and Mailer regarded (fairly or not) as a misogynist and one who received a suspended sentence for (twice) stabbing the second (the artist Adele Morales (1925–2015)) of his six wives.

In the twentieth century, “bolshevik” was often used as a term of disparagement, often from establishment figures disturbed by challenges to the status quo, subversive types like TS Elliot (1888-1965) and James Joyce (1882-1941) both called literary bolsheviks and some painters wore “artistic bolshevik” as a badge of honor; later, there would be feminists who proudly described themselves as “bolshie women”.  Winston Churchill (1875-1968; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) abhorred communism and not infrequently referred to the new order in Moscow as the “Bolshevik baboons” and was supportive of a multi-national military intervention in the Russian Civil War (1918-1920) but was also, strategically, a realist.  His biographer recounted how he note there were:

“…nearly half a million anti-Bolshevik Russians under arms, and the Russians themselves planned to double this figure.  If we were unable to support the Russians effectively, it would be far better to take a decision now to quit and face the consequences, and tell these people to make the best terms they could with the Bolsheviks.”

So it transpired and the small foreign forces were withdrawn but he always made clear that as Minister for War, he did this out of military necessity and not any lack of conviction that the communists should have been overthrown, telling a press conference in Washington DC in 1954 that had he “…been properly supported in 1919, I think we might have strangled Bolshevism in its cradle, but everybody turned up their hands and said, ‘How shocking!’”

Menshevik (pronounced men·she·vik, men-shuh-vik or myin-shi-vyeek (Russian))

A member of the faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party opposed to the Bolsheviks; inter alia, they advocated a gradualist approach to the attainment of socialism through parliamentary government and cooperation with bourgeois parties.  By 1918, the remaining members had been absorbed into the Communist Party of Russia, formed that year.

1907: From the Russian меньшеви́к (menʹševík) from меньшинство́ (menʹšinstvó) (minority) from ме́ньше (ménʹše), the comparative of ма́лый (mályj) (little), the sense being “those in a minority” (the Minoritarians), the construct being ménʾsh(iĭ) (lesser, smaller (comparative of málenʾkiĭ (small) and thus the source of menʾshinstvó minority)) + -evik (one that is (a variant of –ovik, the noun suffix)).  The source the Russian men'she (lesser), was a comparative of malo (little), from the primitive Indo-European root mei- (small).  Menshevik & Menshevist are nouns & adjectives, Menshevism is a noun and Menhevistic an adjective.  The noun plural is Mensheviks (Mensheviki in the Russian which is pronounced myin-shi-vyi-kyee).

The noun minimalist dates from 1907 in the sense of “one who advocates moderate reforms or policies" and was originally an adapted borrowing of Menshevik; as understood as "a practitioner of minimal art" it dates from 1967, the term “minimal art” being noted first in 1965.  It was an adjective from 1917 in the Russian political sense and since 1969 in reference to art.  It was comrade Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov 1870–1924 and known by his alias Lenin; revolutionary, political theorist and founding head of government (Soviet Russia 1917-1924 and the Soviet Union 1922-1924) who vested Bolshevik (as Bolsheviki meaning Majoritarians or those in the majority) and Menshevik (as Mensheviki meaning Minoritarians or those in the minority).

Comrade Lenin Agitprop.

Lenin was a classic example of a political phenomenon which would so frequently feature in twentieth century revolutionary politics: the middle-class radical.  His intellectual predisposition had already tended that way but it was after the regime in 1886 hanged his elder brother in punishment for his involvement in an attempt to assassinate the reactionary Tsar Alexander III (1845–1894; Emperor of Russia 1881-1894) that his interest shifted from the mostly theoretical.  Apparently somewhat an inept activist in his younger years, he was soon apprehended by the Tsar’s secret police and transported to Siberia where he wrote a treatise on Russian economic development in which he claimed that capitalism was already the country’s dominant mode of production, quite a startling assertion given the state of things.  He found himself on a sounder intellectual footing as a political tactician, his 1902 pamphlet What Is to Be Done? which advocated a rigid centralism in party structure, the vetting of members and a tightly enforced discipline.

Lenin actually borrowed the title from Nikolay Chernyshevsky's 1863 pro-revolutionary novel What Is to Be Done? (1863), a book not without critics but one which exerted a still often underestimated influence on those who would in the years to come build the political movements which culminated in the events of 1917.  It also drew the attention of Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) who in 1886 wrote his own What Is to Be Done? although it’s a work more of moral theology and was published sometimes as (the probably more accurate) What Then Must We Do? and (in English) as What to Do?

Lenin knew what to do.  A brief work of stark clarity, his pamphlet was quite a change from the verbose and discursive stuff of the era and attracted much attention although its uncompromising was too much for many, the second party congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party in 1903 ending in acrimony although Lenin did secure one pyrrhic victory, his faction winning a majority in the congress vote, enabling him to label his group the Bolsheviki (Majoritarians), the opposition responding, with some implied irony, that they were therefore the Mensheviki (Minoritarians).  The Bolsheviki accused the Mensheviki of being anti-revolutionaries and the Mensheviki labelled the Bolsheviki (and especially Lenin) dictatorial and intolerant.  Had the word fascist then existed, both sides would have used it.  As things soon transpired, defections meant Lenin didn’t long have the numbers and the Mensheviki became the majority (although both sides kept their names), prompting Lenin to damn them as usurpers and it was in this spirit the congress ended, the two factions setting up their own newspapers and network of spies, little time devoted to the revolution because of the internecine conflict.  The outbreak of revolutionary protest in 1905 was thus a surprise to both Mensheviki and Bolsheviki and neither side was sufficiently organized to take advantage of the situation which the Tsar’s forces soon suppressed with a mixture of carrot and stick.

Whether the revolution was to be in than hands of the Mensheviks or Bolsheviks was decided in the war-time chaos of 1917.  Without the war, the Tsarist regime might have endured but when in February it became clear the army were either unable or unwilling to act against the strikes and demonstrations, it became apparent to all the Tsar must abdicate which he did on 15 March (under the Gregorian calendar or 2 March under the Julian calendar then used.  The “administration” which formed in the wake of the revolution (of which the Mensheviks were a part) was from the start beset with problems, some of its own making and few were responsive to the methods adopted, the factionalized and quasi-democratic structures adopted ill suited to deal with the multiple crises of the time.  Strikes and other industrial disruptions may not have made the subsequent Bolshevik insurrection inevitable but the failure to extricate Russia from the war and the not unrelated shortages of food and medical supplies probably did.  What’s remembered as the October revolution (on 7 November (Gregorian calendar) or 25 October (Julian calendar)) was organized by the Bolshevik party and, having seized power, it wasn’t for decades relinquished.  Were there any doubt about the methods and morality of the Bolsheviks, the tsar and his family, under house arrest since March 1917, were on 16 July 1918 murdered although historians continue to debate whether Lenin personally ordered the shootings, documentary evidence impossible to assess because comrade Lenin order it all burned.

Suicide

Suicide (pronounced soo-uh-sahyd)

(1) The intentional taking of one's own life.

(2) By analogy, acts or behavior, which whether intentional or not, lead to the self-inflicted destruction of one's own interests or prospects.

(3) In automotive design, a slang term for rear doors hinged from the rear.

(4) In fast food advertising, a niche-market descriptor of high-calorie products deliberately or absurdly high in salt, sugar and fat.

(5) A trick in the game Diabolo where one of the sticks is released and allowed to rotate 360° round the diabolo until it is caught by the hand that released it.

(6) In Queensland (Australia) political history, as suicide squad, the collective name for the additional members of the Legislative Council (upper house) appointed in 1921 solely for the purpose of voting for its abolition.

(7) In sardonic military slang, as suicide mission, a description for an operation expected to suffer a very high casualty rate.

(8) A children's game of throwing a ball against a wall and at other players, who are eliminated by being struck.

(9) Pertaining to a suicide bombing, the companion terms being suicide belt & suicide vest.

(10) In electrical power, as "suicide cable (or cord, lead etc)", a power cord with male connections each end and used to inject power from a generator into a structing wiring system (highly dangerous if incorrectly used).

(11) In drug slang, the depressive period that typically occurs midweek (reputedly mostly on Tuesdays, following weekend drug use.

(12) In US slang, a beverage combining all available flavors at a soda fountain (known also as the "graveyard" or "swamp water".

(13) As "suicide runs" or "suicide sprints", a form of high-intensity sports training consisting of a series of sprints of increasing lengths, each followed immediately by a return to the start, with no pause between one and the next.

1651: From the New Latin  suīcīdium (killing of oneself), from suīcīda and thought probably of English origin, the construct being the Latin suī (genitive singular of reflexive pronunciation of se (one’s self)) from suus (one’s own) + cīdium (the suffix forms cīda & cide) from caedere (to kill).  The primitive European root was s(u)w-o (one's own) from the earlier s(w)e and new coining displaced the native Old English selfcwalu (literally “self-slaughter”).  Suicide is a noun & verb, suicidal is a noun & adjective, suicider is a noun; the noun plural is suicides.  Pedantic scholars of Latin have never approved of the word because, technically, the construct could as well be translated as the killing of a sow but, in medieval times, purity had long deserted Latin and never existed in English.  The modern meaning dates from 1728; the term in the earlier Anglo Latin was the vaguely euphemistic felo-de-se (one guilty concerning himself).  It may be an urban myth but there was a story that a 1920s editor of the New York Times had a rule that anyone who died in a Stutz Bearcat would be granted a NYT obituary unless the death was a suicide.

Terry Richardson's (b 1965) suicide-themed shoot with Lindsay Lohan, 2012. 

The Legislative Council was the upper house of the state parliament in Queensland, Australia and a bastion of what might now be called the upper 1% of white privilege.  The Australian Labor Party (ALP) had long regarded the non-elected Legislative Council (and upper houses in general) as undemocratic and reactionary so in 1915, after securing a majority in the Legislative Assembly (the lower house) which permitted the party to form government, they sought abolition.  The Legislative Council predictably rejected the bills passed by the government in 1915 & 1916 and a referendum conducted in 1917 decisively was lost; undeterred, in 1920, the government requested the governor appoint sufficient additional ALP members to the chamber to provide an abolitionist majority.  In this, the ALP followed the example of the Liberal Party in the UK which in 1911 prevailed upon the king to appoint as many new peers as might be needed for their legislation to pass unimpeded through an otherwise unsympathetic House of Lords.  Ultimately, the king agreed but so shocking did the lords find the idea of their chamber being flooded with "jumped-up grocers" that they relented in their opposition.  In Queensland however, the new members of the Legislative Council duly took their places and on 26 October 1921, the upper house voted in favor of abolition, the new appointees known forever as "the suicide squad".  Despite the success, the trend didn't spread and the Commonwealth parliament and those of the other five states remain bicameral although the two recent creations, established when limited self-government was granted to the Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory (ACT), both had unicameral assemblies.

Suicide doors

1928 Mercedes-Benz Nürburg (W08) with four rear-hinged doors.

It wasn’t until the 1950s the practice of hinging doors from the front became (almost) standardized.  Prior to that, they’d opened from the front or rear, some vehicles featuring both.  The rear-hinged doors became known as suicide doors because they were genuinely dangerous (in the pre-seat belt era), the physics of them opening while the car was at speed had the effect of dragging the passenger into the airstream.  Additionally, it was said they were more likely to injure people if struck by passing vehicles while being opened although the consequences of being struck by a car sound severe whatever the circumstances.

2021 Rolls-Royce Phantom VIII Tempus.

Still used in the 1960s by Lincoln, Ford and Rolls-Royce, they were phased out as post-Nader safety regulations began to be applied to automotive design and were thought extinct when the four door Ford Thunderbirds ceased production in 1971.  However, after being seen in a few design exercises over the decades, Rolls-Royce included them on the Phantom VII, introduced in 2003, the feature carried over to the Phantom VIII in 2017.  Like other manufacturers, Rolls-Royce has no fondness for the term suicide doors, preferring to call them coach doors; nomenclature from other marketing departments including flex doors and freestyle doors.  Engineers are less impressed by silly words, noting the correct term is rear-hinged and these days, mechanisms are included to ensure they can be opened only when the vehicle is at rest.  Encouraged by the reaction, Rolls-Royce brought back the rear-hinged door for their fixed (FHC) and drop-head (DHC) coupés although, despite the retro-touch, the factory seems now to call them simply coupés and convertibles.  

1971 Ford Thunderbird Landau.

In a nod to a shifting market, when the fifth generation Thunderbird was introduced in 1967, the four-door replaced the convertible which had been a staple of the line since 1955.  Probably the only car ever visually improved by a vinyl roof, the four-door was unique to the 1967-1971 generation, its replacement offered only as a coupé.  The decision effectively to reposition the model was taken to avoid a conflict with the new Mercury Cougar, the Thunderbird moving to the "personal coupé" segment which would become so popular.  So popular in fact that within a short time Ford would find space both for the Thunderbird and the Continental Mark III, changing tastes by the 1970s meaning the Cougar would also be positioned there along with a lower-priced Thunderbird derivative, the Elite.  Such was the demand for the personal coupé that one manufacturer successfully could support four models in the space, sometimes with over-lapping price-points depending on the options.  The four-door Thunderbirds are unique in being the only car ever built where the appearance was improved by the presence of a vinyl roof, the unusual semi-integration of the rear door with the C pillar necessitating something be done to try to conceal the ungainliness, the fake "landau irons" part of the illusion.

1966 Lincoln Continental convertible.

The combination of the suicide door, the four-door coachwork and perhaps even the association with the death of President Kennedy has long made the convertible a magnet for collectors but among American cars of the era, it is different in that although the drive-train is typical of the simple, robust engineering then used, it's packed also with what can be an intimidating array of electrical and hydraulic systems which require both expertise and equipment properly to maintain.  That need has kept a handful of specialists in business for decades, often rectifying the mistakes of others.  It was unique; after the even rarer Mercedes-Benz 300d Cabriolet D ceased production in 1962, Lincoln alone offered anything in the niche.  Introduced in 1961, the convertible was never a big seller, achieving not even four-thousand units in its best year and was discontinued after 1967, the two-door hardtop introduced the year before out-selling it by five to one.  The market had spoken; it would be the last convertible Lincoln ever produced.

Lincoln Continental concept, Los Angeles Motor Show, 2002.

Interest in the Lincoln Continental had been dwindling since the down-sizing of the early 1980s and the nameplate suffered a fourteen year hiatus between 2002-2016.  Unfortunately, the resuscitation used as its inspiration the concept car displayed at the 2015 New York International Auto Show rather than the one so admired at Los Angeles in 2002.  The LA concept might not have been original but was an elegant and balanced design, unlike what was offered in NYC fifteen years later: a dreary mash-up which looked something like a big Hyundai or a Chinese knock-off of a Maybach.  The public response was muted.

Lincoln Continental concept, New York Motor Show, 2015.

By 2019, it seemed clear the thing was on death-watch but Lincoln surprised the industry with a batch of eighty longer-wheelbase models with suicide doors to mark the eightieth anniversary of the Continental’s introduction in 1939.  Although there were cynics who suggested turning a US$72K car into one costing US$102K was likely aimed at the Chinese market where a higher price tag and more shiny stuff is thought synonymous with good taste, the anniversary models were sold only in the home market.

2019 Lincoln Continental Eightieth Anniversary Edition.

The retro gesture proved not enough.  After building a further one-hundred and fifty (non-commemorative) suicide door versions for 2020, it was announced production would end on 30 October 2020 and the Continental would not be replaced.  Not only was the announcement expected but so was the reaction; the market having long lost interest in the uninspiring twenty-first century Continentals, few expressed regret.  The name-plate however, one of the most storied in the Ford cupboard, will doubtless one day return.  What it will look like is unpredictable but few expect it will match the elegance of what was done in the 1960s.

Evelyn McHale: The most beautiful suicide.

The photograph remembered as “the most beautiful suicide” was taken by photography student Robert Wiles (1909-1991), some four minutes after the victim's death.  Evelyn Francis McHale (1923–1947) was a bookkeeper who threw herself to her death from the 86th-floor observation deck of New York's Empire State Building, landing on a Cadillac limousine attached to the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) which was parked on 34th street, some 200 feet (60 m) west of Fifth Ave.  The police would later find he last note which read: “I don’t want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation?  I beg of you and my family – don’t have any service for me or remembrance for me.  My fiance asked me to marry him in June.  I don’t think I would make a good wife for anybody. He is much better off without me.  Tell my father, I have too many of my mother’s tendencies.”  It's reported her mother suffered from “an undiagnosed and untreated depression”.