On the methods of the disciplinary stage of social revolution: guerrilla experience in France and Ukraine

The article examines the process of the disciplinary system’s formation within counter-insurgency operations, using the suppression of the Vendée uprising (1793–1796) and the fight against peasant resistance in Ukraine in 1918–1922 as examples. Central attention is given to M. Foucault’s concept of the panopticon, which is interpreted as a model for the transformation of insurgent space from a state of “polyopticon” — a regime of mutual observation and support between insurgents and the local population — into a regime of centralized surveillance and suppression. The author demonstrates how, in conditions of revolutionary anomie and civil war, new forms of power control are created: military, ideological, and police structures gradually seize the initiative from the insurgents, isolating the population from partisan formations and forming a “disciplinary cordon”. Comparative analysis reveals both soft forms of influence (as in the case of General Hoche in France) and harsh forms — characteristic of Bolshevik practices combining terror and administrative-police control (panopticon). The work emphasizes that success in combating guerrillas depends not only on the strength of the coercive apparatus but also on the state’s ability to penetrate the microphysics of everyday life, imposing its network of surveillance, normalization, and control. In conclusion, the article discusses the prospects for the development of guerrilla warfare in the context of technological changes, especially concerning the proliferation of unmanned surveillance systems, which call into question the sustainability of traditional insurgent potential in high-tech societies.