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Union Revolutionary Council

The Union Revolutionary Council (Burmese: နိုင်ငံတော်တော်လှန်ရေးကောင်စီ), officially the Revolutionary Council of the Union of Burma (Burmese: ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်လှန်ရေးကောင်စီ) or simply the Revolutionary Council (RC; Burmese: တော်လှန်ရေးကောင်စီ), was the supreme governing body of Burma (now Myanmar) from 2 March 1962, following the overthrow of U Nu's civilian government, to 3 March 1974, with the promulgation of the 1974 Constitution of Burma and transfer of power to the Pyithu Hluttaw (People's Assembly), the country's new unicameral legislature.[1][2]

Revolutionary Council of the Union of Burma
ပြည်ထောင်စုမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်လှန်ရေးကောင်စီ
Agency overview
Formed2 March 1962 (2 March 1962)
Dissolved3 March 1974
TypeCouncil
JurisdictionBurma
HeadquartersRangoon
Agency executive

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.[2] 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.[3] From 1962 to 1971, BSPP transitioned from a cadre party (consisting of elite RC affiliated members) into a mass party.[3] In the First Congress, the party had 344,226 members.[3] By 1981, BSPP had 1.5 million members.[3]

Leadership

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The Union Revolutionary Council was led by Ne Win, its chairman and 16 senior officers.[4]

The founding members of the First Revolutionary Council, all of whom were military officers, are:[1][5][6][7]

  1. General Ne Win BC-3502 (Chief of General Staff)
  2. Brigadier General Aung Gyi BC-5458 (Vice-Chief of General Staff) (Army)
  3. Commodore Than Pe (died 1962) (Vice-Chief of General Staff) (Navy)
  4. Brigadier General Thomas 'Tommy' Cliff (Vice-Chief of General Staff) (Air Force) (resigned 1964)
  5. Brigadier General Tin Pe (resigned 1970) BC-3508 (Quartermaster General)
  6. Colonel Than Sein BC-3574 (Colonel-General Staff)
  7. Colonel Kyaw Soe (retired 1974) BC-3526 (Military Appointment General)
  8. Colonel Chit Myaing (dismissed 1964) BC-3520 (Vice-Quartermaster General)
  9. Colonel Khin Nyo (dismissed 1965) BC-3537 (Director General of Directorate of Military Training)
  10. Colonel Hla Han (Director General of Directorate of Medical Services)
  11. Brigadier General San Yu BC-3569 (Commander of Northern Military Command)
  12. Brigadier General Sein Win BC-3525 (Commander of Central Military Command)
  13. Colonel Thaung Kyi BC-3523 (Commander of Southeast Military Command)
  14. Colonel Kyi Maung (sacked 1963) BC-3516 (Commander of Southwest Military Command)
  15. Colonel Maung Shwe (resigned 1972) BC-3575 (Commander of Eastern Military Command)
  16. Colonel Saw Myint (sacked 1964) BC-3518 (Administrator of Border Regions)
  17. Colonel Tan Yu Sai (resigned 1968) BC-5090 (Vice-Commissioner of General of People's Police)

Revolutionary Government

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The government formed by the Revolutionary Council of 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 the Council of Ministers was formed on 8 May 1974.[8]

Council member terms

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Union Revolutionary Council[9]
Name and Rank Military Position RC Position Date
General Ne Win BC 3502 Chief of Staff of Armed Forces Chairman 2 March 1962 to 1 March 1974
Brigadier General Aung Gyi BC 5458 Vice Chief of Staff (Army) Member 2 March 1962 to 7 February 1963
Brigadier General Than Phay Vice Chief of Staff (Navy) Member 2 March 1962 to 22 May 1962
Brigadier General Tin Phay BC 3508 Chairman of Forestry Member 2 March 1962 to 14 November 1970
Brigadier General Tommy Clift Vice Chief of Staff (Air) Member 2 March 1962 to 2 November 1964
Brigadier General San Yu BC 3569 North Western Regional Military Command Member 2 March 1962 to 2 March 1974
Brigadier General Sein Win BC 3525 Central Regional Military Command Member 2 March 1962 to 2 March 1974
Colonel Kyi Maung BC 3516 South Western Regional Military Command Member 2 March 1962 to 12 March 1963
Colonel Maung Shwe BC 3575 Eastern Regional Military Command Member 2 March 1962 to 22 September 1972
Colonel Thaung Kyi BC 3523 South Eastern Regional Military Command Member 2 March 1962 to 2 March 1974
Colonel Than Sein BC 3574 Colonel General Staff Member 2 March 1962 to 2 March 1974
Colonel Kyaw Soe BC 3526 Military Appointment Secretary Member 2 March 1962 to 2 March 1974
Colonel Saw Myint BC 3518 Director – Border Troops Member 2 March 1962 to 17 August 1964
Colonel Chit Myaing BC 3520 Member 2 March 1962 to 31 March 1964
Colonel Khin Nyo BC 3537 Director – Military Training Member 2 March 1962 to 9 June 1965
Colonel Tan Yu Saing BC 5090 Member 2 March 1962 to 6 October 1970
Colonel Lun Tin BC 3610 Commander – No. 7 Infantry Brigade Member 5 July 1962 to 9 July 1971
Colonel Maung Lwin Member 12 September 1964 to 2 March 1974
Colonel Tin Oo BC 3651 South Western Regional Command Member 12 September 1964 to 2 March 1974
U Ba Nyein Member 9 July 1971 to 2 March 1974
Dr. Maung Maung Member 9 July 1971 to 2 March 1974
Mahn Thar Myaing Member 9 July 1971 to 2 March 1974

References

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  1. ^ a b Heinz, L.C. (6 March 1962). "An Analysis of the Current Situation in Burma". US Department of State. Archived from the original on 18 December 2014. Retrieved 11 October 2012.
  2. ^ a b Moscotti, Albert D. (1977). Burma's Constitution and Elections of 1974. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. pp. 171–172.
  3. ^ a b c d Seekins, Donald M. (2006). Historical Dictionary of Burma. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810854765.
  4. ^ "Historical Background". Burma Yearbook 2000. 2000. Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 11 October 2012.
  5. ^ ""A Voluntarily abdicated Majesty" or "A Usurper": A Brief Political History of Ne Win" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 September 2012. Retrieved 11 October 2012.
  6. ^ Mya Maung (1991). The Burma Road to Poverty. Praeger. p. 119. ISBN 9780275936136.
  7. ^ Nakanishi, Yoshihiro (2013). Strong Soldiers, Failed Revolution : The State and Military in Burma. NUS Press. p. 102. ISBN 9789971697020. Table 4.1
  8. ^ ဝန်ကြီးအဖွဲ့ဥပဒေ [The Council of Ministers Law] (in Burmese). Pyithu Hluttaw. 1974.
  9. ^ Mya Win – Leaders of Tatmadaw
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