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36-667: The Revolutionary Council's philosophical framework was laid in the Burmese Way to Socialism , which aspired to convert Burma into a self-sustaining democratic socialist state , on 30 April 1962. On 4 July 1962, the RC established the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), the country's only legal political party which Donald M. Seekins claims was modelled along the lines of a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary party . From 1962 to 1971, BSPP transitioned from

72-610: A multi-party system . However, the Tatmadaw instigated a coup d'état shortly afterwards and established a new military junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council . The Burmese Way to Socialism led Burma to international isolation , and has been described as "disastrous". For example, the black market and income disparity became major issues. Burma's real per capita GDP (constant 2000 US$ ) increased from $ 159.18 in 1962 to $ 219.20 in 1987, or about 1.3% per year – one of

108-635: A cadre party (consisting of elite RC affiliated members) into a mass party. In the First Congress, the party had 344,226 members. By 1981, BSPP had 1.5 million members. The Union Revolutionary Council was led by Ne Win , its chairman and 16 senior officers. The founding members of the First Revolutionary Council, all of whom were military officers, are: The government formed by the Revolutionary Council of

144-528: A certain social concern, clearly lacks the ability and the will necessary to build a socialist society". Especially after the 1990s, ethnic activists referred to General Ne Win's policies of the 1960s as "Burmanization." This term referred to the policies of the Burmese Road to Socialism, with its emphasis on Burmese culture, military control, and Burmese Buddhism. Such critique claimed that Burmese Road to Socialism policies were an attempt to "Burmanize"

180-586: A number he considered to be auspicious, led to the wiping of millions of savings of the Burmese people, resulting in the 8888 Uprising . Union Party (Burma) The Union Party ( Burmese : ပြည်ထောင်စုပါတီ , romanized :  Pyidaungsu Pati ) was the ruling political party in Burma in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Formed by a split in the Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League , it

216-853: A second military-backed coup d'état, this time without U Nu's blessing. Ne Win established Burma as a one-party socialist state under a military government with the Union Revolutionary Council replacing the Union Parliament as the supreme governing body. Ne Win became a dictator as both the Chairman of the Union Revolutionary Council and the Prime Minister, the head of state and the head of government in Burma, respectively. In April,

252-561: A week were leaving Burma. By September 1964, approximately 100,000 Indian nationals had left the country. The black market became a major feature of Burmese society, representing about 80% of the national economy during the Burmese Way period. Moreover, income disparity became a major socioeconomic issue. Throughout the 1960s, Burma's foreign exchange reserves declined from $ 214 million in 1964 to $ 50 million in 1971, while inflation skyrocketed. Significant gains were made in some of

288-744: The Arakan , the Pa-O , some Mon and Shan groups, but more significantly by the PVO surrendering their arms. The Union Parliament became very unstable, with U Nu barely surviving a no-confidence vote only with the support of the opposition National United Front (NUF), believed to have crypto-communists amongst them. Hardliners in the Burmese Army viewed this as a threat of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) coming to an agreement with U Nu through

324-660: The Council of Ministers was formed on 8 May 1974. Burmese Way to Socialism The Burmese Way to Socialism ( Burmese : မြန်မာ့နည်းမြန်မာ့ဟန် ဆိုရှယ်လစ်စနစ် ), also known as the Burmese Road to Socialism , was the state ideology of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma , the socialist state governed by the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) from 1962 to 1988. The Burmese Way to Socialism

360-684: The Mon and Rakhine minorities, and that Buddhism would become the state religion , gaining it support from the Buddhist clergy. It received 57% of the vote, winning 158 of the 250 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 53 of the 125 seats in the Chamber of Nationalities , allowing U Nu to return as Prime Minister. Following the elections, it adopted the Union Party name. In 1962 U Nu's government

396-643: The Rohingya . The "Burmese Way to Socialism," while making significant strides in education and healthcare, also negatively affected the economy and the living standards of the Burmese people. Foreign aid organisations, like the American-based Ford Foundation and Asia Foundation , as well as the World Bank , were no longer allowed to operate in the country. Only permitted was aid from a government-to-government basis. In addition,

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432-586: The 1950s. By 1958, Burma was largely beginning to recover economically, but was beginning to fall apart politically due to a split in the ruling AFPFL into two factions: the Clean AFPFL (သန့်ရှင်းဖဆပလ) led by U Nu and Thakin Tin, and the Stable AFPFL (တည်မြဲဖဆပလ) led by Ba Swe and Kyaw Nyein. This situation persisted despite the unexpected success of U Nu's "Arms for Democracy" offer taken up by U Seinda in

468-673: The NUF, and resulted in U Nu inviting General Ne Win , the Army Chief of Staff, to serve as interim prime minister to restore order in Burma. Over 400 "communist sympathizers" were arrested, of which 153 were deported to a penal colony on Great Coco Island in the Andaman Sea . Among them was the NUF leader Aung Than, older brother of Aung San . Newspapers like Botahtaung , Kyemon and Rangoon Daily were also closed down. On 28 October 1958, Ne Win staged an internal coup d'état under

504-561: The Shan Saopha of their feudal powers in exchange for comfortable pensions for life in 1959, but the unresolved issues of federalism and social order continued. By 1962, the Burmese public perceived the elected civilian government as corrupt, inept at ruling the country, and unable to restore law and order, while the Burmese military were popular from stability created by Ne Win's caretaker government. On 2 March 1962, less than two years after returning to civilian rule, Ne Win launched

540-531: The Shan federalist movement started by Sao Shwe Thaik , the first President of Burma from 1948 to 1952 and the Saopha of Nyaung Shwe . The Shan federalists were aspiring to create a "loose" federation in Burma, and were seen as a separatist movement for insisting on the Burmese government honouring the right to secession in 10 years provided for by the 1947 Constitution . Ne Win had already succeeded in stripping

576-548: The Union Revolutionary Council government adopted "Burmese Way to Socialism" as its official political and economic ideology for governing Burma. In July, the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) was founded as part of the Burmese Way to Socialism to be Burma's sole legal political party. The BSPP became the official ruling party with Ne Win as its Chairman. The "Burmese Way to Socialism" has been described by some scholars as anti-Western , isolationist and socialist in nature, characterised also by an extensive dependence on

612-527: The Union of Burma was named Revolutionary Government of the Union of Burma ( ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်လှန်ရေးအစိုးရ ) or simply Revolutionary Government ( တော်လှန်ရေးအစိုးရ ). As wiping out the monarchist terms, a Ministry was called as a Department ( ဌာန ) and a Minister was called as a Person in-charge of Department ( ဌာနတာဝန်ခံ ) during the time of the Revolutionary Government. The terms Ministry and Minister were restored when

648-479: The auspices of U Nu and successfully restored Burma's political stability , a period known as the "Ne Win caretaker government ", until the February 1960 general election which returned U Nu's Clean AFPFL, renamed as the Union Party, with a large majority. Ne Win officially handed back power to the victorious U Nu on 4 April 1960. However, the situation in Burma did not remain stable for long due to petitions from

684-530: The country. Similarly, visas for foreigners were limited to just 24 hours. Furthermore, freedom of expression and the freedom of the press was extensively restricted. Foreign language publications were prohibited, as were newspapers that printed "false propagandist news." The Press Scrutiny Board (now the Press Scrutiny and Registration Division), which censors all publications to this day, including newspapers, journals, advertisements and cartoons,

720-499: The military, emphasis on the rural populace, and Burmese (or more specifically, Burman) nationalism. Despite the Union Revolutionary Council leaders' phraseology being socialist, their actions were those of ardent nationalists seeking to maximize the power of their state. In January 1963, the "Burmese Way to Socialism" was further elaborated in a political public policy called " The System of Correlation of Man and His Environment " ( လူနှင့် ပတ်ဝန်းကျင်တို့၏ အညမည သဘောတရား ), published as

756-477: The nationalization of basic industries, including department stores, warehouses and wholesale shops, followed. Price control boards were also introduced. The Enterprise Nationalization Law directly affected foreigners in Burma, particularly Burmese Indians and the Burmese Chinese , both of whom had been influential in the economic sector as entrepreneurs and industrialists. By mid-1963, 2,500 foreigners

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792-440: The philosophical and political basis for the Burmese approach to society and what Ne Win deemed as socialism, influenced by Buddhist , humanist and Marxist views. The fundamentals of the "Burmese Way to Socialism", as outlined in 1963, were as follows: The subsequent discussion of the nature of ownership, planning and development strategy in Burma between 1962 and the mid-1970s indicates that while Burma formally established

828-669: The same period. In the First Burmese Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) Congress in 1971, several minor economic reforms were made, in light of the failures of the economic policy pursued throughout the 1960s. The Burmese government asked to rejoin the World Bank, joined the Asian Development Bank , and sought more foreign aid and assistance. The Twenty-Year Plan , an economic plan divided into five increments of implementation,

864-400: The social sectors. Adult literacy rate grew from 60% to 80% between the late 1960s and 1980s, and the number enrolled in primary schools as a percentage of the age group increased from 44% to 54% during the same period. In the health sector, life expectancy rose from 44% to 54%, infant mortality rate declined from 129 to 50, and the number of persons per physician, from 15,560 to 3,900 during

900-460: The structures of a socialist economy, it did not effectively implement those structures. Furthermore, since the mid-1970s due to economic failure, Burma had to accept policies that imply more private activity, including foreign investment . According to a 1981 scholarly analysis, "there is little evidence that Burma either is now, or is in the process of becoming a socialist society". The study also stated that "the leadership, although demonstrating

936-409: The substantial ethnic populations of Myanmar via a nationalized school system, popular culture and the military. In the context of Burmanization, military officers supervised the spread of Burmeses language, culture, and Buddhism. Resistance to such policies resulted in ethnic insurgencies, and violent responses of the Burmese military known as " Four Cuts " policies, denial of citizenship to groups like

972-602: The teaching of the English language was reformed and moved to secondary schools, whereas previously it had started as early as kindergarten. The government also implemented extensive visa restrictions for Burmese citizens, especially when their destinations were Western countries. Instead, the government sponsored the travel of students, scientists and technicians to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe , in order to receive training and to "counter years of Western influence" in

1008-758: The weakest growth rates in East Asia over this period. Despite this, significant gains were made in healthcare and education . The program also may have served to increase domestic stability and keep Burma from being as entangled in the Cold War struggles that affected other Southeast Asian nations. Burma under Prime Minister U Nu and the AFPFL -led coalition government in the Union Parliament had implemented left-wing economic and welfare policies, although economic growth remained slow throughout

1044-663: Was able to continue as Prime Minister due to support from the National United Front and some of the independent MPs. However, the dispute between the two factions continued to worsen and in September 1958 the Army brokered a compromise, taking power with a government headed by Ne Win until elections were held eighteen months later. In the 1960 elections campaign the Clean AFPFL promised increased autonomy for

1080-575: Was banned by the government. The impact on the Burmese economy was extensive. The Enterprise Nationalization Law, passed by the Revolutionary Council in 1963, nationalized all major industries, including import-export trade, rice, banking, mining, teak and rubber on 1 June 1963. In total, around 15,000 private firms were nationalized. Furthermore, industrialists were prohibited from establishing new factories with private capital. This

1116-588: Was established by the RC through the Printers' and Publishers' Registration Act in August 1962. The RC set up the News Agency of Burma (BNA) to serve as a news distribution service in the country, thus effectively replacing the work of foreign news agencies. In September 1963, The Vanguard and The Guardian , two Burmese newspapers, were nationalized. In December 1965, publication of privately owned newspapers

Union Revolutionary Council - Misplaced Pages Continue

1152-676: Was initially known as the Clean Anti-Fascist People's Freedom League ( Clean AFPFL ) or Nu-Tin faction . The party was formed in June 1958 when the AFPFL split in two following internal disputes that had intensified since its January congress; One group was led by Prime Minister U Nu , which he named the "Clean AFPFL"; the other was led by Kyaw Nyein and Ba Swe and became known as the Stable AFPFL . The Clean faction

1188-464: Was introduced by the Union Revolutionary Council (URC), the military junta established by Ne Win and his allies in the Tatmadaw (Burmese military) after they overthrew the democratically elected government of Prime Minister U Nu in a coup d'état on 2 March 1962 . It ceased to be Burma's state ideology in 1988, when the pro-democracy 8888 Uprising pressured BSPP officials to resign and adopt

1224-492: Was introduced, in order to develop the country's natural resources, including agriculture, forestry, oil and natural gas, through state development. These reforms brought living standards back to pre-World War II levels and stimulated economic growth. However, by 1988, foreign debt had ballooned to $ 4.9 billion, about three-fourths of the national GDP, and Ne Win's later attempt to make the Kyat based in denominations divisible by 9,

1260-578: Was occasionally referred to as the Nu-Tin faction , referring to its other leader Thakin Tin , and contained several groups from different political streams, including the left-wing Pongyi Kyaung faction of the Burma Socialist Party and conservative commercial interest groups. Although the Stable faction was supported by the larger group of AFPFL members in the Chamber of Deputies , U Nu

1296-656: Was particularly detrimental to the Anglo-Burmese , Burmese Indians and the British, who were disproportionately represented in these industries. The oil industry, which was previously controlled by American and British companies, such as the General Exploration Company and East Asiatic Burma Oil, were forced to end operations. In its place was the government-owned Burma Oil Company , which monopolized oil extraction and production. In August 1963,

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